


Soaring Skyward

by nayanroo



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pern, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 14:57:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2816291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nayanroo/pseuds/nayanroo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a rider loses their dragon, they lose a part of themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soaring Skyward

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> To my giftee: I hope you like this left turn your prompts took me on. I thought for a while about how best to fill this for you and hit on something that was at once human and supernatural. I hope you enjoy it, and have a good holiday!
> 
> Some notes on the source material for the AU - the Dragonriders of Pern books by Anne McCaffrey were part of my life growing up. Telepathic dragons? Humans just on the verge of being metahuman? Space travel? What an awesome collection of stuff. I've done my best to put in enough information about the world to make people not familiar with Pern able to follow and understand the basic rules of the world, particularly of Weyr life. Crafthall life is slightly more my invention, so there's some artistic license taken here.
> 
> More information on Pern can be found at the [Pern Wiki](http://pern.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page). The wording for the poem below, "By the Golden Egg of Faranth", was taken from [this site](http://www.pern.nl/archives/pernpoetry.htm).

By the Golden Egg of Faranth  
By the Weyrwoman, wise and true,  
Breed a flight of bronze and brown wings  
Breed a flight of green and blue.  
Breed riders, strong and daring,  
Dragon-loving, born as hatched,  
Flight of hundreds soaring skyward,  
Man and dragon fully matched.

It was a dangerous Fall. A storm had blown in off the ocean, wild and wet but too warm to freeze Thread in midair, and the wind blew the falling Threads into clumps and tangles. There had nearly been four collisions in his Wing already, and they were barely half an hour into the Fall. With all that, L’kei couldn’t help the trepidation he felt as he fed his bronze dragon Rayuth more firestone.

 _I am nimble in the air_ , Rayuth replied. His mental voice was that same matter-of-fact tone all dragonkind used when they were baffled by their riders’ thoughts. As if to emphasize that, he pulled his wings to his back and dove flaming after a patch of Thread that had gotten past an upper Wing. Gripping his riding straps, L’kei felt fear be replaced by elation. Rayuth was a marvel, truly, one of the biggest bronzes on Pern. He was only second to Mjolnith, the bronze that his brother T’horr had Impressed at the same Hatching, and privately L’kei felt that Mjolnith was too big to be maneuverable.

_Clumps above. I go_ , Rayuth said. L’kei could sense that Rayuth was relishing his rider’s mental praise, and as his dragon’s strong wings beat them upward he grinned as he saw a gout of orange flame, just enough to accomplish the destruction of the clump, pour from Rayuth’s mouth…

…and was subsequently glad that his riding leathers covered his mouth, because a cloud of blackdust, charred remnants of Thread, blew right back in his face. _Careful_ , he thought. _You’ll get me scored._

_I would never let anything hurt you, L’kei,_ Rayuth said. And secure in that knowledge, in the fact that whenever he felt like he had no one he always had his dragon, L’kei grinned and handed off more firestone. He was really only along for the ride as they dove and flamed and fought Pern’s ancient menace, tempting fate, flickering into the cold black nothingness of _between_ and reemerging, flaming, triumphant.

When he pulled out of a dive, Rayuth squealed suddenly and they went _between_ again. _Wingtip caught,_ he said, his mental voice sheepish. _Sorry._

_Are you hurt?_

_It is only my wingtip. We go now._

It seemed to happen in slow motion. They reemerged to a gust of wind head-on, blowing more black dust into his face. But he couldn’t look away from the huge, tangled clump of Thread that struck his dragon right across the neck, burning and burrowing into bronze hide and hissing evilly as it did… nor could he miss that before Rayuth could flicker back _between_ to freeze Thread and kill it, his hide blackened from the gout of flame from the mouth of another bronze dragon arrowing straight down at them.

The other bronze roared and disappeared into _between_ a second before the dragons would have collided, but L’kei wasn’t in the moment anymore, he was with his dragon screaming in pain and howling and clawing at his neck to try and free himself of the burning felt sympathetically through their mental bond. Rayuth disappeared again, reappearing in the stormy skies high above rain-lashed High Reaches Weyr.

They plummeted out of the sky. Faintly, below them, L’kei could hear the roaring of other dragons, the clarion trumpeting of Suyeth, the senior queen dragon who was brooding over a clutch of eggs and had not gone to fight Thread. Other dragons, too old or too young to fight, were rising from their weyrs to catch Rayuth in his fall, to lower him gently to the sandy bowl of the weyr. Rayuth was thrashing, screaming in pain, and L’kei felt himself screaming too as hands unclasped his riding straps and pulled him from his dragon’s neck.

“No!” he hissed, fighting to get back to Rayuth’s head. Suyeth had come charging out of the Hatching Grounds and had one great foreleg over her son’s neck above the scoring, her head bent to Rayuth’s head and her eyes whirling red-orange in agitation. “No, let me get to him, he needs me, he’s hurt—“

“You’re hurt too!” someone yelled at him, and more hands pulled him back, away from his dragon. Rayuth whined, his body thrashing when his head was pinned down, neck stretched between Suyeth at his head and a big brown dragon at his shoulders. But his body was free, and as he tried to break the hold of the other dragons there was a huge crack, and pain lanced through L’kei’s head.

“He’s broken a wing!” someone shouted. “ _Pin him down,_ for the love of Faranth!”

“Shards,” someone nearby L’kei whispered, “The scoring goes down to the bone, all along the ridges—“

“Quiet!” someone else – his mother? The headwoman? – hissed. “L’kei—“

“Dose him with fellis and see to his own scoring,” an authoritative voice called, and that was _definitely_ Frigga, Weyrwoman of High Reaches Weyr, his mother. “He won’t be still until he is, his dragon’s in too much pain.”

“No,” L’kei whispered, not sure why but certain that if he lost awareness he would lose much more. _Rayuth, don’t leave me, please_ , he thought. All he got in return was a maelstrom of pain and panic. Rayuth’s eyes were bright red, cutting through the haze as the rain began in earnest. _Don’t leave me,_ he thought again desperately. _I love you, Rayuth. Don’t leave me alone!_

He got no response, and as someone grabbed his shoulders and someone else poured fellis juice down his throat, L’kei felt darkness far more final than _between_ taking hold of him.

*

When he awoke, he felt cold and curiously light at the same time. One strong breeze would push him off the planet, surely, send him spinning out into space.

_Rayuth?_ he thought. There was no answer.

L’kei stirred, and felt a hand rest on his shoulder. “Don’t move too much, son,” a low voice said. He didn’t think he could; the number of times that his father O’dinn, Weyrleader of High Reaches Weyr, had shown any kind of warmth and affection toward him numbered less than the fingers on one hand. “You’ve gotten scoring all along your right shoulder and side, and it’s fairly deep. Your mother had to send for the Masterhealer herself to stitch your hide back together, and you’re covered in so much numbweed it’s making me lose feeling in my own fingers.”

Now that it was brought to his attention, L’kei realized he couldn’t feel his right arm and side. Looking at his fingers he could wiggle them against the furs, but not feel anything. He licked his lips, turning his head to look at O’dinn. 

At better than fifty Turns, the Weyrleader had a lined face and a stern visage. His eyes rarely showed his emotions, though Frigga had often insisted to her sons that he was immensely proud of both of them for having Impressed bronzes. Which fact worried L’kei now, because O’dinn’s eyes were clearly sad whenever they looked upon him.

“Rayuth?” he asked quietly, looking out toward the outer part of the weyr that held the stone couch where his dragon usually slept. It was empty, and the darkness outside hid anything beyond. He saw no glowing, colored eyes… perhaps Rayuth had been brought somewhere else in the Weyr, perhaps he was simply too dosed with numbweed to respond to any mental prodding…

In his heart, though, L’kei knew.

“Rayuth had scoring down to the bone,” O’dinn said gently. “And the flaming had charred him from almost the base of his head down to his shoulders. Mjolnith has a powerful flame—“

“T’horr did that?” L’kei whispered.

“Not intentionally. He is dosed with fellis as well – he came haring in after you, and Mjolnith had to be subdued by the queens when they returned from the Fall. He feels responsible.”

“Responsible…?”

“The pain drove Rayuth mad, son. Suyeth could not hold him, and it took four other dragons besides her. He broke bones in both his wings and fractured a foreleg, and that was in addition to the extra scoring along his sides and through his wing membranes. It was a dangerous Fall for this Weyr,” and L’kei saw weariness sag O’dinn’s features. But his father was stalling, and in place of the great and terrible emptiness that had replaced his dragon in his heart, L’kei felt anger begin to rise.

“Where is my dragon? What happened to him?” he asked, even though he knew the answer.

“Rayuth broke free of the others, after you’d been dosed with fellis and couldn’t hold him. Despite his wing injuries, he went _between._ ”

“He went…”

“I’m sorry, son. Rayuth is gone, and Pern mourns.”

He had already known – had known the moment he’d woken up and felt so cold, so insubstantial – but hearing it made the growing anger break free of its bonds and well up out of him in hot tears and wrathful words.

“If I hadn’t been unconscious I could have _held him here!_ ” he shouted. “If the Weyr hadn’t thought me _weak_ and _incapable_ and _inferior_ to my great _brother_ , they wouldn’t have thought—“

“This had nothing to do with any of that,” O’dinn said, and how could he remain calm, his son’s dragon was dead, and L’kei – he would have to take another name now, he had no right to the honorific contraction anymore, and that realization stung him too because it was another wedge between him then and him now – knew, he _knew_ that some part of his father was glad because it meant that when O’dinn and Frigga retired from leading the Weyr there wouldn’t be a challenge between L’kei and T’horr, who had always been the one favored to take over in his father’s place, and L’kei…

“It had _everything_ to do with that!” Climbing out of bed was probably inadvisable, but he didn’t care. His dragon was dead, and he was alone, and everything, his entire life, was ruined.

O’dinn put up both hands, and his voice was cold and low when he spoke. “Sit down, L’kei. Listen.” When his body’s pain caught up with his mind, L’kei sat sullenly, and O’dinn waited for a beat before he spoke. “You will be able to remain here at High Reaches Weyr if you so choose; nobody can deny a dragonman—a former dragonman – a place at his home. If you wish to leave, you may do so. But I will not permit you to foment discord. We are in the middle of a Pass, and however bitter your feelings are, if you remain here you remain under my leadership. I will allow you to recover here, but if I hear that you are causing trouble—“

“Never fear of that, _Weyrleader_ ,” L’kei snapped. “As soon as I am able, I intend to leave. I shan’t remain where I’m not _wanted._ ” That wasn’t the true reason of it; he couldn’t bear to be around dragons when he could only remember what it was like. He couldn’t bear to watch his brother become Weyrleader when he deserved – had deserved – the position so much more.

“You will always be wanted here, L’kei,” O’dinn said gently. “But I understand your need to leave. When Eir says you are healed, you may go.”

“Thank you for your _permission._ ” L’kei lay back down on the bed and pulled the furs up over his head. “Leave me alone.”

O’dinn was silent for a long time. “Son…”

“Get out!”

Rather than reprimand him for being insolent to his Weyrleader, O’dinn simply left. L’kei heard the sound of wingbeats as his father’s bronze hovered, then the whoosh of air as they left. Even that action made the rift a little wider. He was no longer a dragonrider beholden to O’dinn’s leadership nor even a weyrman, so why bother disciplining him?

_Rayuth?_ he thought one last time, clinging to one last hope. When the mental echoes subsided and there was no comforting draconic reply, L’kei – now Loki – let his tears fall in private, for he would have no one to share himself with ever again. He was alone, and he would always be alone, and Pern was as cold as space to him.

*

When Eir pronounced him well on the way to healing a few days later, Loki had begun tearing through his possessions, packing up the ones that he wanted to keep, discarding the ones he didn’t in a pile on Rayuth’s stone bed. The quilted cover that he’d always carefully straightened for his dragon still smelled of the musky, smoky scent of dragon, still had bits of hide fuzz on it, and pain sharper than Threadscore had lanced through his heart.

It was while he was in the middle of dumping his spare riding harness and leathers onto the couch that the shadow of wings passed the outside of the weyr and a big bronze landed on the ledge. Its rider hopped down and waited anxiously to be invited in, but Loki only glared at his brother and kept working.

T’horr fidgeted. “May I come in, L’kei?”

“It’s Loki now. And I have nothing to say to you. Leave me be.” He turned his back and walked away, but T’horr finally found his usual brash confidence and walked in, following Loki around as he pulled clothing and books out of cabinets.

“You’re leaving?”

“Obviously. What part of leave did you not understand?”

“Where will you go? What will you do? You’ve been a dragonrider all your life—“

“Now it seems I’ll be something else. And I meant what part of ‘leave me be’ did you not understand, T’horr? I lost my dragon because of your recklessness. I do not want to see you now, or ever again.”

T’horr stared at his back so long that Loki could feel two points of heat, but steadfastly ignored it. T’horr might act apologetic, but Loki had no doubts that he was quite glad that his path to Weyrleader was smoothed now.

“Don’t leave me, Brother,” T’horr whispered, and the plaintive echo of his own pleas to Rayuth only fueled his hurt.

“Don’t stop me, _Brother._ You’ll be Weyrleader when our father steps down—“

“You don’t know that—“

“I do now. You’ll be Weyrleader, just as was always planned for you, and everything will be just _perfect_ for the _perfect_ dragonman with the _perfect_ dragon. So I am leaving.” Loki angrily shoved the last few bits and bobs into his pack and slung it over his shoulder. “Perhaps I’ll become a Harper and write a ballad about you. I’m sure your ego would love that.”

“What’s wrong with you?” T’horr snapped suddenly. “I came here to apologize, to beg you to stay because you always have such wise counsel and I _need_ you, but _Shards_ , I should have known better!”

He left, calling for Mjolnith, and when Loki turned and ran out into the outer weyr, he got a glimpse of alarmed yellow-orange eyes and bronze hide streaking past.

He left the Weyr that evening, galloping out of the Bowl tunnel and down the long road toward the south.

*

Biting her tongue to hold back a bitter retort, Sif lifted her gitar and launched into the opening chords of “The Ballad of Moreta’s Ride” for the third time. It wasn’t her fault that the third journeyman in this set of students hadn’t practiced, thinking that his wit and charm were more important to his future as a Harper than his ballads, but the Master in charge of this class seemed to like targeting her more. And it was even _more_ infuriating when beside her, Loki plucked away at his accompaniment line without even looking at the score. Of course, if she’d practiced as much as she should have, she’d have the thing memorized note-perfect too, but…

It wasn’t that Sif didn’t care about her future as a Harper. As the third daughter of the current Lord Holder of Ruatha Hold, she would have been used as a pawn in power alliances between Holds, and that was something she wasn’t going to stand by and allow to happen. But he’d had no way to stop her from taking one of Ruatha’s prize runnerbeasts and making for the Harper Hall, not when she’d done it in the middle of the night while he was asleep. At least as a Harper, she’d thought, she’d be able to go wherever she pleased, do whatever she pleased, make her own destiny rather than serve at the whim of someone else’s. Much more the thing.

But she hadn’t accounted for idiot journeymen and Masters who had a deep-seated dislike of women getting promoted over them, and so here she was, playing this ballad once again. And as they came to the final stanza, the notes slowly dying out in the classroom, Sif thought to herself that if she had to sing this one more time she would actually, really, go completely mad. Fortunately the Master grudgingly pronounced them competent and released the class.

She waited as the rest of the students ran ahead to dinner (the Harper Hall never ran out of food so she had no idea why they insisted on treating mealtimes as marathons) until her annoyingly well-practiced companion had finished packing up his instrument and joined her.

“Are your fingers as sore as mine?” she asked. It was more of a rhetorical question and part of their usual verbal dance, since neither of them would have made it to journeyman without having built up their finger strength, but Loki smiled thinly and wiggled his long fingers in front of them as they walked.

“I’m feeling spry. But if yours are…” and he reached down and scooped up her hand, the calloused pads of his fingertips massaging along the lengths of her fingers, “…I can certainly take care of that.”

It had been as apprentices that they’d started this. Sif had met a sad and bitter man who refused to talk about his past or why he had Threadscore tracing down his side and scorch marks on his fingers; she had made it her goal to not only beat him to journeyman’s rank, but to crack open his shell. Surprisingly, she’d accomplished both, though it had been a long few Turns as she did so. In the cool dark of her quarters, Loki had begun to slowly trust her, and now here they were, hand in hand as they walked across the courtyard. She knew it cost him dearly to be so openly affectionate, but even Loki had admitted it was better than watching her from across a classroom and wishing. After all, he’d said, nobody else had cared, and he refused to believe her when she insisted that was hardly the case. She still knew very little of his past beyond that he was weyr-bred, but perhaps they’d get a posting together, and she’d have all the time in the world to decipher his riddle.

“I am in need of your particular ministrations,” Sif replied in a low voice, and felt his fingers twitch in her grip. “But woe betide you if I have to hear that ballad again in the next sevenday.”

“And there go all my plans to serenade you to sleep with the thrilling tale.” But there was that sense of closed-off pain that was his indication of a mental block in the path of this topic, and Sif added it to her list of things that elicited that reaction. It was how she’d determined what little she knew of him, and so far all his little triggers were related to dragons and weyr life. He did his duty as a Harper, but the music and teaching was secondary to his ability to elicit information from people he talked to. Harpers were the fastest way for news to travel across Pern, and Loki made it his business to learn as much as he could before anyone else. Perhaps _that_ was why he kept himself so closed off.

“I’m sure you could sing something far more sweet.”

“I could, but would you want me to?” He gave her a sly look and let her hand fall as they entered the dining hall to collect their plates of food. “Sweetness is not precisely your nature.”

“I’ll have you know that I was taught manners from an early age!”

“Yes, but none of them seem to have sunk in.” Loki dodged her jabbing fist and took a seat by one of the windows of the hall that looked out over the outer buildings of Fort Hold. Most of the people lived inside the cave-pocked cliff face, solid stone offering the best protection from Threadfall, but during the last Interval there had been some building out, and the pasturelands all held herdbeasts or runners or other livestock right now as Thread was not due to fall over Fort for another three days. The flagstones of the Harper Hall court were all free of greenery, as was taught in the ballads. Up on the heights, the Watchdragon posted by Fort Weyr was a huge bulk against the dusk, too far away for her to even see the points of light that were its eyes.

Many times Sif had wished that she’d been Searched. Pern had many queen dragons right now, and most senior queens at the weyrs wouldn’t allow too many junior queens for the bronzes to get distracted by come time to mate, but the life of a Weyrwoman offered more excitement than even a Harper’s life. It would have been a sure way to evade her father’s rampant matchmaking (and even now she would sometimes wake in fear that she’d be called back to the Hold), and she’d be able to fly anywhere, to watch Thread burn from the sky… but every time the Fort Weyr dragons had ridden on Search for a queen egg, she’d either been hidden away by her parents or passed over or missed their visits somehow, and there was a part of her that was more than a little bitter about it.

“You’re daydreaming again,” Loki said, cutting into her thoughts. “Believe me, Sif, being a dragonrider is not what you think it would be.”

“How would you know?”

“I grew up in a Weyr, remember?”

Sif pursed her lips at him in annoyance. He liked to play these games, to taunt her with bits of information about him only to draw back, to needle her with things she already knew. “Which Weyr? There are a few more than Fort.”

Loki pretended to ignore the question, as he usually did, and after a moment he deliberately turned the conversation to other things. 

“They’ll be testing for Master soon. Will you make the attempt?”

“Of course I will. I don’t want to be stuck here forever, and I know there’s some hold out there that needs two harpers as skilled as us.”

Loki raised an eyebrow. “You would like us to be posted together?”

“Of course, you sharding idiot. You already know all my musical habits, and if I got a posting with someone else I’d have to train them up properly.”

He made a face, but Sif could read him well now, and she could tell that he was extremely pleased, and strangely enough, surprised. “I don’t know another Harper who could tolerate that caterwauling you call singing. I suppose someone must be able to accompany that and it may as well be me. Just promise you’ll get us posted somewhere cold.”

“You have to pass the Master’s exam first, mind.”

“Do you doubt that I will?”

“Given that you’ve come so far in only three months? No, I don’t.”

As they lay entwined that night, though, sweat cooling on their bodies, Loki stirred beside her. “High Reaches,” he murmured.

“Hm?”

“You asked what Weyr I was raised in,” he said. His fingertips smoothed the coverlet, nervously curling and uncurling over the curve of her hip, and Sif reached down to take his hand. It was clear that giving even her this much was quite difficult. “I was born and raised in High Reaches Weyr.”

“No wonder you want a posting in a cold place,” Sif whispered. She did not press further; she had learned that, in dealing with Loki, one had to treat him like a skittish runnerbeast. It was endlessly frustrating but also rewarding, and when he pressed his lips to her shoulder in gratitude and nestled down behind her, Sif closed her eyes, adding one more piece to the puzzle of her lover.

*

Darkness had long fallen when T’horr directed Mjolnith to the ledge outside Suyeth’s weyr. Light spilled out of it even at this late hour, and as his dragon backwinged to land, he could see that his father’s Sleipnirth was perched on his ledge just above. Sleipnirth’s eyes were green-blue, which comforted T’horr somewhat; if O’dinn had been agitated or upset, his dragon would have reflected that.

_Sleipnirth would have told me to be careful,_ Mjolnith reminded him gently, and T’horr gave his dragon a pat as he dismounted.

_Unless my father told him not to._

_The Weyrleader would not lie._

_Not without reason, anyway._ T’horr let that thought go though and went inside, Suyeth, his mother’s queen dragon and the senior queen of High Reaches Weyr for more than thirty Turns, was in the Hatching Ground brooding over what was probably going to be her last clutch. She had seen the Weyr into this new Pass, but her muzzle was graying with age and her hide had darkened from the bright gold of T’horr’s childhood memories to a shade nearer to bronze.

In the living area of the Weyrwoman’s weyr, his father and mother sat at a polished table surrounded by carved wood chairs. They were a luxury, given that forests were so hard to protect from the depredations of Thread, and T’horr let his palms slide over the polished arms of them when he sat. For himself he only had stools in his weyr, but being Weyrwoman afforded Frigga more comforts.

“How are you, my son?” he mother asked, smiling at him. It had never occurred to T’horr before but he could see the lines in Frigga’s face, the sadness around her eyes. She was into her sixth decade, but Thread had been falling for twenty of those Turns, and that took a toll on everyone. And there was also…

T’horr banished thoughts of L’kei – of Loki – from his mind. His brother had made his feelings clear when he’d left five Turns ago, and as confused and hurt as he was, T’horr had grown weary of trying to fix things. Loki had refused to return and refused to see him and that was that.

“I’m well, Mother. What is going on?”

O’dinn glanced at his weyrmate before he picked up the conversation. “Suyeth will probably not rise again,” he said. “And if she does, the queen egg on the Sands now will be her last. But both of us are perhaps beyond the usual mating flight antics.”

“Not quite,” Frigga murmured with a smile. “But O’dinn and I wanted to call you in to tell you that while we intend to keep leading the Weyr until we find a junior weyrwoman who is ready and capable of stepping into my shoes, we want you to think seriously about succeeding your father.”

“It’s hardly up to me,” T’horr began slowly, but O’dinn put up a hand.

“The Weyr will choose in its own manner. Some bronze riders are simply not meant to lead a whole Weyr… F’dral, for one. A capable rider, but he does not command the same respect as you.”

“Mjolnith is the greatest bronze out of Suyeth,” Frigga said. “Save perhaps… well.”

“Rayuth was a fine bronze,” T’horr said. “L’kei—“

“He was not meant to lead.” Frigga gave her weyrmate a sharp glance, but deftly changed the subject.

“We are sending riders out on Search,” she said. “We want you to go out and look for likely women. You know what makes a good weyrwoman, a good dragonrider. Suyeth’s last daughter should have a rider who is as exemplary as she will undoubtedly be.” Frigga’s eyes got that faraway look that told of a rider communicating with their dragon, and her expression became fond. “Suyeth says that she will be the final judge of who pairs her daughter, but she’s been quite broody lately.”

“I’ll leave in the morning,” T’horr said, rising from the table. “I’m… I will miss your leadership.”

“Oh, we probably won’t be going anywhere,” O’dinn said. “High Reaches is our home, has been since we were born. We belong here.”

“But if we leave, I’m sure there’s a deserted beach near Ista that is big enough for two old dragons and their equally old riders.” Frigga embraced her son. “You’ve become a fine man, T’horr. Whether or not you become Weyrleader, we will always be proud of you.”

T’horr bowed and left, his head and his heart in turmoil. His parents had been Weyrleader and Weyrwoman since before he had been born; he couldn’t imagine High Reaches without them. And he couldn’t imagine himself in their place, which worried him. L’kei - _Loki_ , scorch it – had accused him of favoritism in that regard, and T’horr hadn’t been able to deny it, but he was no longer sure he wanted it.

_Suyeth and Sleipnirth are not retired yet,_ Mjolnith reminded him as he hovered, waiting for his rider to mount. _You have time._

_I wish I could think and live as you do,_ T’horr thought wearily. He felt the mental equivalent of dragon laughter.

_You would not be able to flame as I do._

_Too true, friend!_

*

It was almost more intimidating to be in a classroom with no one but the Masterharper and two other Masters. Sif felt it was a wonder that she remembered the verses to the ballads she was singing in the first place, but remember she did, and no matter what instrument she picked up her fingers knew how to play it, and when she set down her gitar after the last piece and saw approval, she knew she’d done better than she’d hoped.

Loki wouldn’t be sitting his exam until later and had been in such a mood that morning that Sif had left in disgust to practice in a quiet corner of the Hall, so she slung her gitar case across her back and climbed up onto the roof of the dormitory hall. From up here she could see much, and the air was clean and clear after last night’s rains.

Loki found her late in the afternoon as she leaned back against a chimney idly strumming chords. He sat heavily beside her and pulled out his own instrument. She changed her melody to intertwine with the one he started playing, and they improvised the duet for a while before either one of them spoke.

“How do you suppose it went?” he asked.

“I don’t believe I have brought shame on Ruatha.”

“You left Ruatha behind when you came here.”

“And you left the Weyr behind, so we can only really think about what lies ahead of us.” Sif rested her gitar on her knees and looked at him, a hand in her dark hair as she reached out to stroke his own, grown long and curling over his collar. “Stop worrying. You did well.”

“You don’t know that.”

“The fact that you insist on fussing about it means you did.”

Loki gave her a sidelong glance, but set his gitar down too. “I suppose we’ll know when they tell us.”

“Until then, it’s time to uncork a skin of that Benden white wine you’ve pilfered from the kitchen.”

Loki pressed his hand to his heart, aggrieved, but smirked a little as he produced the skin and two glasses. “How’d you know?”

“I know you.” Sif grinned at him. “And I saw you crossing from the kitchen not ten minutes ago. You’d best hope that wine didn’t get too warm with it tucked under your coat like that!”

“I have ice from the High Reaches in my blood, I’ll have you know.” He handed her a glass. “To tomorrow.”

They took a long sip each, slipping back into their thoughts. Sif leaned just slightly against Loki, knowing the touch was always a comfort to him. When he’d arrived here and they’d first become friends he had been flighty, then as their friendship grew he became almost smothering. Something had made him fear being left alone, and she’d had to yell at him more than once to get him to stop padding around after her like a lapdog. Now they spent more nights together than apart, but he was much better at respecting her need for her own space.

“Even if I don’t pass,” Loki said suddenly, as dusk began to fall, “I will follow you, Sif. Wherever you go.”

Something in his voice was so earnest that Sif found she couldn’t speak. She just turned his face to hers and pressed her wine-warmed lips to his mouth, then his eyelids, then his forehead, and hoped it was enough.

*

T’horr appeared over Fort Hold in a blast of cold air. Mjolnith trumpeted a welcome to the watchdragon as he began a long spiral over the Hold and the sprawl of buildings. S’tev had allowed him to fly on Search in Fort’s territory, though there had been a note of hesitation. Fort’s senior queen was due to rise soon, and she was young. She would surely lay a queen egg herself, so it was understandable that Fort wouldn’t want High Reaches to poach the best women out from under their nose and deny a potential queen hatchling a good selection of candidates.

It wasn’t as though T’horr and Mjolnith hadn’t diligently ridden to every tiny Hold and crafthall between home and here. But Mjolnith had seemed indifferent at best to nearly all the women, and for his part, T’horr hadn’t found any of them particularly compelling.

_We will find someone._ Mjolnith backwinged to land, sending the banners snapping against their poles in the courtyard of the main Hold. His eyes were whirling bright green with delight, and T’horr snorted. The dragon considered this whole trip great fun and quite good for his rider, who had stewed in his own guilt and sadness for far too long.

_What confidence dragonkind has,_ T’horr thought, sliding off the great bronze shoulder. Mjolnith tilted his head slightly.

_There is power here,_ he said. T’horr hesitated, peering up at his dragon.

_Where?_

But the doors opened and Lord Holder Anthony came striding out, followed closely by his Lady and several advisors. “Welcome, T’horr!” he said, holding his arms out. With a grin, the two men embraced; Anthony had spent some time at High Reaches, and he and T’horr had become friends there. It was always good, or at least interesting, seeing him. “Business or pleasure?”

“Business this time, my friend,” T’horr replied. “My apologies.”

“You’re on Search, aren’t you?”

“I am. Do I have…”

“Permission? Of course. Fort’s produced more than a few Weyrwomen in its time.”

“Some of the best,” T’horr agreed. “I thank you, Lord Holder. And my duty to you, Lady Virginia.”

“You know to call me Pepper, T’horr.”

“You will have to tell me one more time at least, Lady.” He kissed her hand when she slipped it into his.

“Dine with us tonight in the main hold. It’s been too long since we’ve had a friendly face around here.”

“It would be my pleasure, Lady V—Pepper.”

When she went inside along with the rest of their retinue, Lord Anthony paused, peering at T’horr. “You know your brother is at the Harper Hall.”

A stab of old guilt rippled through him, memories of all the unanswered letters. “I know. He made it quite plain Turns ago that he wants nothing to do with me.”

“People change over time. Though I’m not sure if your brother’s one of them.” They both turned to look toward the Harper Hall, hung about with blue banners. “I’ve had an eye kept on him. He’s prospered as a Harper.”

“All the more reason I should leave him be. All I will do is upset him.”

“Probably. Is that going to stop you from seeing him?”

T’horr thought for a moment, shaking his head. There were too many Turns of guilt. “No.”

“The Harper Hall’s as likely a place to find a candidate as any. Search it… last, maybe.”

*

When he had been a dragonrider Loki had been awake with the dawn. Riders were discouraged from being lazy from birth if they were raised in the Weyr, and a newly-hatched dragon required daily care and feeding such that a weyrling ran the risk of hurting his beast if he did not attend its needs. Despite being Turns removed from that life, Loki had retained the habit of waking just before sunrise. It allowed him a few hours of quiet before the rest of the Harper Hall rose and started disturbing him with all their thoughts.

So he was surprised when he was awakened suddenly by Sif flinging herself on top of him on the bed. She was babbling something, but he could only register the happiness in her voice. Taking her by the waist, he sat up.

“Sif—Sif, I can’t understand you, whatever is the matter?”

Her hands were in his hair, pulling the ends as she yanked him in for a long, sloppy kiss, her eyes bright as dragonfire when she pulled back. “They posted the list of new Mssters,” she told him breathlessly. “We’ve both made it. We’re both Master Harpers, Loki!”

She kissed him again, all wild excitement and joy and freedom, and it took him several minutes to realize that the strange pain in his chest was his own happiness, come anew to a heart too long steeped in sadness. That made him grin unreservedly, his hands burying themselves in her glorious black hair, his weight propelling her to the bed. Sif laughed under him, her fingers already plucking at the strings in his sleeping pants, practiced and swift.

“Putting all that gitar practice to work for you, I see,” he hummed in her ear. Sif’s answering laugh was throaty and low, and a different kind of warmth spread through him then, one even easier to succumb to.

Later, Sif leaned back against him, her forehead tucked in the crook of his neck. He could feel her eyelashes brushing against his skin so he knew she hadn’t fallen asleep, but she hadn’t spoken whatever was on her mind either. She was not as quick with her tongue as he was, so for once Loki sat quietly, enjoying the feel of their bodies entwined together.

“We are finally free,” she said quietly. Loki didn’t stop stroking his fingers back and forth over the curve of her shoulder, though his brow furrowed in thought.

“Since we are still bound to the Hall for our livelihoods, I do not believe I understand what you’re trying to say.”

“I am free because my Mastery level makes it that much more difficult for my father to compel me home. I am not just wasting my time – you know he wrote that to me early on, do you not, I remember telling you – I have really made something of my talent. I have chosen my own path and been successful. Father has no real hold over my future anymore.”

He pressed his lips to her hair; the thought of having Sif torn away from him and given to some Holder that her father wanted to ally with made him sick to his stomach, and it made her angry, and neither one were things Loki wanted to abide longer than he had to. “You said _we_ are free?”

Sif tilted her head back and he shifted so he could meet her eyes. She was smiling in a mysterious little way, her fingers splayed over his chest, over his heart. “When I told you that we had earned our rank, you smiled at me.”

“I often smile at you.”

“Never like this. It was like… all that sadness that you won’t tell me the root of wasn’t even there anymore. For that moment it was behind you, and all you were was open, and…” she trailed off, closing her eyes and curling back against his side. “It wasn’t you hidden back in your Weyr, it was just… Loki.”

He hadn’t considered this, and had a moment of panic. What if… “Is _just Loki_ still enough for a lady of Ruatha and a Master Harper?” he asked.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Sif mumbled, and pulled the furs up over them. “You are who I have chosen.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that, so he just pressed his lips to her hair again and then to her forehead, and closed his eyes, thinking that at last he could begin to let the Weyr go.

*

Fog covered Fort Hold’s approaches as T’horr directed Mjolnith to land in the Harper Hall’s courtyard. It was a fitting, dreary end for his Search, but really, he thought, it fit the whole mood. Perhaps it was just being so close to his brother again and yet so far away as to be untouchable, but the sevenday he’d spent in Fort Hold’s territory Searching for likely women to Impress the queen egg (and likely boys, the other dragonets ought to have a good choice too) and while he’d sent the boys on, Mjolnith hadn’t shown any interest in any of the women they’d encountered.

As his dragon backwinged, landing neatly in the courtyard, T’horr had to wonder if he had some kind of mental block about it because of everything else stirred up on the trip. His father and mother were expecting him to bring along at least one candidate, and the other bronze riders had already brought back their likely choices, but he had nothing to show for weeks of Search. Meanwhile, the queen egg hardened and time marched on toward when he would probably take over for his father as Weyrleader, and he was not sure if he was ready even now.

_You worry much,_ Mjolnith said. T’horr looked up at his dragon’s gently whirling blue-green eye. _Do not worry, T’horr._

_There is too much on my mind for that, my friend._

_Take it off your mind._ The dragon stretched his head up on his long neck, and his eyes picked up speed in their whirling. _There is power here._

T’horr paused, his hand still on Mjolnith’s foreleg. _Power?_

_There is someone here._

That was a comforting thought. Perhaps his brother would even be gone by now, assigned to some holder far away, and he had nothing to worry about. Bolstered, T’horr pulled off his riding gloves and tucked them into his helmet as he left the courtyard. A wind hit his back as Mjolnith announced he was going to go to the fireheights with the watchdragon. Perhaps the sun would come out later and they could sun themselves as he searched through the Hall’s inhabitants.

Sometimes, T’horr really wished his life could be as simple as his dragon’s.

“Greetings, dragonrider,” said the Harper who came out to meet him. “I am Masterharper Jorela.”

“T’horr, of the High Reaches.”

“Rider of bronze Mjolnith. You must ride on Search, so far from home?”

“That’s right.” T’horr bowed his head slightly. “I know that I cannot compel any Harper to come with me. But if I have the Masterharper’s leave to at least make my way among those in residence here?”

“The Harper Hall has always been a friend to all dragonriders. As long as you tell me of your parents, of course.”

“The Harpers’ need for information is insatiable.” T’horr grinned though and they walked together through a hallway lit with glows against the dull morning. “A queen egg hardens on the Sands. My mother thinks it is likely to be Suyeth’s last.”

“Does that mean that they are stepping down soon?”

“I think they will wait until they have a better idea of who is best prepared to succeed them. High Reaches is lucky to have many talented bronze riders besides myself. Any one of us would make a good Weyrleader.”

“Your modesty becomes you.” Masterharper Jorela smiled at him, then her expression dimmed a bit. “I suppose you will want to see your brother.”

“Actually, I was hoping that he would be gone from here. Not that I do not want to see him, but… I do not think he wants to see me.”

“You would be right in that. He has found happiness lately, him and his lady—“

“His lady?” T’horr stopped dead in the middle of the hall. “Is my brother wed?”

Jorela laughed. “No, but I think _not yet_ is a better way to say that. They were a pair from the beginning, Loki and Sif. She has been good for him. I think you would like to meet her, if they are not joined at the hip… Garard!”

An apprentice came scurrying over from where he’d been talking with his classmates. “Yes, Masterharper?”

“Have you seen Masters Sif or Loki this morning?”

As the apprentice thought, T’horr felt a surge of melancholy and pride all at once. His little brother, he of the silver tongue and quick mind, a Master!

“I believe Master Loki went out to see about having a new cloak made for the winter,” the apprentice said at last. “But Master Sif was still abed when he left. I heard him telling the stablehand to have a runner ready for her later so they could go out together.”

“Good lad,” Jorela told him. “Good memory. Thank you. And there you have it, bronze rider.”

“Thank you, Masterharper. Where…”

“If Master Sif is awake, she would probably be in the Masters’ dining hall. Garard, could you take our guest?”

“Certainly.”

The halls grew more crowded as they went on, but T’horr was conscious of every pair of eyes on him. Dragonriders naturally commanded more attention, however, and he was already a big man. He kept his eyes open for anyone who might be the source of the power Mjolnith had mentioned. A queen needed a strong and steady hand behind her, and though Harpers were generally smarter than most, no one leaped out at him from the faces he passed.

“Through here, bronze rider,” Garard said, gesturing to a set of doors. T’horr could hear the hum of conversation behind it, conversation that dipped as soon as he walked in and scanned the room. Everyone had stopped, no doubt wondering why a dragonrider was in their midst, but as soon as they had paused they started again. T’horr looked round again, realizing for the first time that he had no idea what kind of woman Loki might like. What would Sif look like? Doubtless she would be smart and have a strong will, Loki had always been stubborn…

His eyes settled on a dark-haired woman who had paused with her spoon halfway to her mouth, her eyes narrowing into a glare, and he thought, _Aha._ Weaving through the tables, he sat across from her.

Slowly she lowered her spoon of cereal back into the bowl, her hazel eyes still narrowed and suspicious. “You are T’horr,” she said.

“Yes. Bronze rider of—“

“Mjolnith. I know.”

She was bold, to talk to him that way. T’horr mentally approved of her. “I’m not here to talk about L’—about Loki.”

“Good,” she replied tartly. “I wouldn’t tell you anything anyway.”

“He has told you nothing good of me?”

“I don’t only get my information from your brother.” Sif took a long drink from her mug of klah. Her eyes didn’t leave him the whole time. “But I have little patience for those who hurt those I care about.”

T’horr held back a snappish reply. It was perfectly logical that Loki would have had nothing kind to say about him, but this Sif was smart enough to realize that her paramour had reason to be biased. Hopefully she would have reason to at least listen to him too. “I appreciate your loyalty to him. He needs it betimes… or at least he did, from what I remember. I admit I haven’t heard much from him in Turns past, as much his fault as mine for losing patience with him myself.”

“He tore up all your letters.”

“I know.” T’horr sighed. “I only wish to know if he’s doing well. I heard from the Masterharper that he’s flourished here. And he is a Master now, so that is good. He was always the wiser of the two of us.”

“Oh, I don’t know about _wise_ ,” Sif told him. “But he has a smart mouth, certainly, and a tongue quick enough to talk himself out of whatever trouble he gets himself into.”

“Would it surprise you to know that it has always been that way?”

She laughed, then looked surprised at her reaction. Something in her eyes softened, and she gestured for an apprentice to bring over another mug of klah. “It wouldn’t at that,” she said quietly. “Tell me more of Loki as a child, dragonrider.”

*

Around midday the sun had burned away the fog, and Loki’s runnerbeast snorted as he pulled up in the Harper Hall courtyard. Most would have asked the watchdragon to convey them wherever they wanted to go, but Loki preferred to ride runners. He couldn’t be on a dragon, not ever again.

“Did Master Sif ever come down?” he asked the stablehand.

“No, she never did. Heard she’s talking to some dragonrider in the dining hall.”

Loki’s blood ran cold. “Dragonrider?”

“A bronze rider came in this morning after you left, Master Loki. He’s on Search.”

His heart plummeted. If a dragonrider was here on Search, if a _bronze_ rider was here on Search, that meant that somewhere on Pern there was a queen egg, and if there had ever been a woman made to lead a Weyr, it was Sif. And the only Weyr he knew of where there was a queen egg—

“No,” Loki breathed.

He was barely aware of anyone as he ran through the hallways, throwing open the Master dining hall doors—to see that Sif was not there.

“Master Sif,” he said, grabbing the arm of the nearest person. “Where is she?”

“She and that dragonrider left—let me go, you’re going to leave a mark!”

The sound of wings and a shadow passing by the windows caught his attention. Going over to the open window, Loki saw a bronze dragon circling to land, one he knew far, far too well.

Rage bubbled up in him. _He is not taking her from me,_ he thought, red clouding his vision, and turned away.

*

“You truly haven’t seen a bronze dragon?” T’horr asked curiously. “I would think that a daughter of Ruatha Hold and a Harper would…”

“We only ever had blues and browns at Ruatha for our watchdragons. And I’ve never really been important enough to accompany anyone to a Gather a-dragonback.” Sif shaded her eyes as they emerged out of the hallway, watching Mjolnith circle above. “Is that your bronze?”

“Mjolnith,” T’horr said proudly. “One of the biggest on Pern. But nimble as a feline.”

“I suppose they must be, to fight Thread.” Sif grinned as the dragon landed, his claws clattering on the flagstones. “Oh, he is lovely! Look how his hide shines in the light!”

She went up to him without waiting, and T’horr hurried after her. Most dragons didn’t like to be touched without their rider’s leave… but to his surprise, Mjolnith hummed in pleasure and stretched his head out on his neck so Sif could scratch along the upper eye ridge, just how he liked it. Slowly both his inner and outer eyelids closed, and T’horr stopped, dumbfounded.

_Mjolnith?_

_Sif is nice,_ his dragon replied. _I like her._

That made T’horr look at this woman who had captured his brother’s heart with fresh eyes. Dragons generally didn’t use the names of people, even dragonriders, unless they really liked them. Mjolnith rarely even named O’dinn and Frigga, but he had used Sif’s name right off the bat.

_Do you think… she could be Searched?_

_She is kind and strong and powerful._

_That’s as much of an endorsement as a dragon can give!_

“His hide is so soft,” Sif was saying quietly. T’horr watched her for a moment, then cleared his throat.

“Sif,” he began slowly. “Have you ever thought about being a dragonrider?”

“No!”

Both of them turned, and Mjolnith’s eyes snapped open, whirling the yellow-orange of distress. His heart in his throat, T’horr stepped forward, holding a hand out.

“Loki,” he whispered. “Loki, is that you?”

*

Sif kept her hand on Mjolnith. The dragon was a solid warmth under her palm, and the only warm spot on her, for the rest of her felt cold. Loki had not spoken much about his past life, but he had told her of his brother in the past week, always speaking with bitter tones. But once she’d been able to talk to T’horr she’d been more inclined to like him, for he was a good and kind man, the kind of person a dragonrider should be – but Loki hated the weyrs and hated his brother and hated all things having to do with dragons, and all that whirled about in her mind along with the question T’horr had asked of her.

_Have you ever thought about being a dragonrider?_

“You can’t take her,” Loki was saying. He was angrier than she had ever heard him, his eyes flashing bright blue, his fists clenched. “You took my dragon, you took my life, you _can’t take Sif from me._ ”

“It’s her choice, Loki,” T’horr replied gently, holding his palms out now. “I wouldn’t take her against her will. I know you wouldn’t love a woman who would be so easily swayed away from you.”

“You’re a _dragonrider_ ,” Loki spat. “You have the perfect bronze, there’s a queen egg… I bet you want her for yourself, don’t you, you want everything I have, my _dragon_ wasn’t enough, you have to take the one good thing, the one person on this miserable planet who makes me _happy_ anymore…”

“I don’t want to make you unhappy,” T’horr began, but Sif wasn’t listening. So Loki had lost his dragon? He’d been a dragonrider, not just weyrfolk? A lot of pieces fell into place in her mind then.  
“… _care_ ,” Loki was hissing. Beside her, she felt Mjolnith tense, rumbling, uncomfortable that his rider was being so targeted. Without a thought she quieted him and stepped forward.

“It’s my choice, Loki,” she said. “I want to go. But I want you to come with me.”

Something in his expression began to crack, and her heart hurt. Underneath the anger, there was a lost little boy, someone who felt alone but used that as an excuse to lash out, to blame others for his misfortunes. “I can’t,” he whispered, voice breaking. “I _can’t_ go back to the Weyr. I… I can’t, Sif, I can’t be around dragons, I…”

“You said you would follow me,” she pressed. “You said you would follow wherever I went.”

“Not there…”

“You could be my weyrmate,” she said. “And I might not even Impress, and all you’d have to do then is follow me back here, you don’t know, I don’t know…”

Mjolnith told her that she was as likely a queenrider as he’d ever met, but she kept that thought to herself. T’horr, she saw, glanced back at his dragon though, and she willed him to keep his mouth shut.

“I can’t go back there, Sif—just, just please, Sif, don’t go with him, don’t leave me alone!”

“You won’t be alone!” She went and took his hands and felt him shaking, trying to pretend that he was angry when he was scared, going back to his habits of hiding how he felt under a veneer of disdain and failing miserably, and her heart ached. She moved her hands to his cheeks, making him look at her. “You would not be alone,” she repeated. “You will always have me.”

“And you would have a dragon, and then your dragon would _mate_ with _his_ \--“ Loki jabbed a finger at T’horr, “And you would forget all about me.”

“Do you think that how I feel is so easily changed? I could not just forget about you, Loki, I…” her throat closed around the words, and desperate to get her point across in a way he could trust and understand, Sif kissed him, his mouth, his cheeks, his forehead, trying to show him how she felt when her Harper’s words failed her.

“Things change when your dragon rises,” Loki muttered, his fingers flexing around her wrists. “You would forget about me, you wouldn’t care about _mere mortals…_ ”

“Stop it,” Sif told him, irritation in her voice. Loki looked as though he’d been slapped, but his eyes had become hard and angry, and she pushed him away with a snort.

“You don’t believe me,” she said. “Then I have no reason to stay, for I cannot be with someone who thinks me so inconstant. Do the last three Turns mean nothing to you, Loki?”

“Not anymore, if you’re going to go with _him_.”

“You could come too,” T’horr said. “You are being ridiculous, Loki, if you think that there is no place for you at Sif’s side if she becomes a dragonrider. Even if she becomes Weyrwoman and I Weyrleader… I—I would gladly seek companionship elsewhere. It has never happened before, but it will happen if that is what it takes. Please, Loki, come _home_ with us.”

“High Reaches isn’t my home anymore! It stopped being my home when your dragon flamed my Rayuth out of the sky!”

“It was an accident! It happened during _Fall!_ You know how dangerous that is!”

“We had come through so much together—when I had nothing I had my dragon, and then when I had nothing I had Sif, and you have taken them both! Sif, come here, don’t go with him.”

Something inside Sif gave way, and through the lump in her throat she backed away until she stood at Mjolnith’s shoulder. Whining, the dragon bent his head to touch his muzzle to her gently, and she saw Loki wince and look away. “He won’t listen to you. T’horr, I accept your offer. I will return to High Reaches Weyr with you and become a dragonrider.” She looked back at Loki, her heart broken. “I have nothing here anymore.”

T’horr looked between them both, helpless. “Sif, please,” he told her. “My brother needs you. I cannot Search you, not in good conscience—“

“But I can volunteer.” Sif felt hot tears sting her eyes and blinked them back. “My loyalty was ill-placed.”

“Sif…” Loki’s voice was choked, and she saw him reaching out to her. “Sif, please, please, don’t go, don’t leave me…”

“You said you would follow me,” she told him. “You lied. You lied to me, Loki, you tried to command me, knowing that I came here to escape that very thing. I make my own choices… as you make yours. T’horr, _please._ ”

As he passed her Sif saw tears on the dragonrider’s cheeks, quickly hidden by his riding helmet. He climbed up onto Mjolnith’s neck and wordlessly pulled her up behind him.

They rose above the Harper Hall, and Sif twisted her head to look down. Loki stood in the middle of the courtyard, looking up at them. Just before they went _between,_ Sif buried her face in the shoulder of the wherhide riding jacket T’horr wore. She was going to the weyr, but her heart was still in the Harper Hall, in the hands of the man afraid to let go of his pain.

*

Loki wasn’t sure how he made it back to their – his – room. In his memory, one moment he was in the courtyard, staring up at where Mjolnith had disappeared… and the next he was sitting on the rush-filled mattress, staring at nothing, trying to ignore the knocking at the door.

Gone. Sif was gone, and he was alone again, empty and cold again.

“Master?” the person knocking called tentatively. “Master, I really must come in… the Masterharper asked me to check on you, Master Loki…”

“Leave me be,” he replied, voice raspy. “I’m just tired.”

There was a moment’s silence, and Loki imagined that whoever had been sent after him was conferring with someone else, debating on if he should be left alone. But a moment later he heard another gentle knock. 

“The kitchens sent up some broth. It’ll be outside your door if you want it.”

“Thank you.” He couldn’t imagine food right now. That morning he’d had his arms curled round Sif’s thighs, holding them tight so his tongue could make her writhe and twist and scream for him, drinking deep of _her_ , but only hours later she was little more than a memory. He lay down on the furs and inhaled her lingering scent, pulled one over him despite knowing from experience that nothing could shake the way _between_ seemed to have settled into his bones, and went to sleep.

When he woke, his anger awoke with him.

*

Sif gasped in lungfuls of cold air when they burst into the watery sunlight above the jagged mountains. She’d flown _between_ before, of course, but never often enough to get used to it, and never with tears freezing to her cheeks in the cold darkness.

Her fingers tightened on wherhide as Mjolnith set his wings for a long spiral. Loki should be with her, there was something in her heart to tell her that. He belonged with her, but she had left him behind in anger, and it was all just _wrong._ Part of her wanted to go back and make things right, but Sif had spent enough time with Loki to know that would only hurt things later on. In any case, she had made her stand. She would not be ordered about, and Loki ought to know that she wouldn’t have responded to that kind of thing anyway.

T’horr pointed off to their left, and Sif followed his arm to see the bowl of High Reaches Weyr open out below them. So deep that a layer of mist almost obscured the floor of the Weyr from view, the collapsed caldera that was the Weyr was far larger than she’d ever imagined. On the upper levels of the bowl sides, she could see the jewel-toned hides of dragons out on their ledges, sunning as best they could. There was movement in the bowl, a great flurry of wings as dragons fed on the herdbeasts tithed to the Weyr by its Holds. 

Mjolnith trumpeted a welcome to the watchdragon on the heights. Sif had the impression of great brown wings extended wide in greeting before they were spiraling more tightly down to a ledge close to the Weyr floor, below the mists. Despite his great size the bronze’s landing was delicate enough that she only felt a slight bump. T’horr slid off first and helped her down. Sif’s clothing pressed to her back as Mjolnith launched again, going off to feed. Shivering, she followed T’horr into the glowing inner weyr.

“Do you want klah?” he asked politely, offering her his riding jacket. “It’s hot enough to counter the chill of _between._ ”

“That would be nice, yes.” She watched as he pulled aside a wall hanging and shouted down a shaft for klah and warm bread. “What’s that?”

“It goes down to the kitchens. One of the benefits of being a wingleader is that I get a weyr with one of these shafts in it – the ones up above have to catch a weyrling on elevator duty to get anything from the kitchens.”

That impressed her; even as a holder’s daughter, Sif had often had to fetch her own refreshments, or had at least scandalized her governesses by doing so. “Will I be a wingleader?”

“If all goes well, you’ll be a queenrider. The only way you lead a wing is if you become senior weyrwoman.”

Gold dragons didn’t chew firestone, Sif remembered. It would render them sterile, little better than a green. “But surely until then…”

“Sadly, no. It’d cause accidents, if the queens flew up higher. You’ll have a flamethrower and fly low, catching burrows. Once your dragon’s old enough to fly, anyway.”

Something in his face pinched, and Sif remembered what had been said at the Harper Hall – that T’horr felt responsible for the death of Loki’s dragon. She felt badly for blaming him after what little Loki had told her of the incident. T’horr had thus far been far from the uncaring brute that Loki had made him out to be; indeed he seemed to feel his brother’s words keenly, his face sagging as he carefully stowed gear that he’d had with him on Search. 

“Loki will come round, I’m sure,” she said. T’horr smiled, but it did not reach his eyes, and her heart hurt a little more for him.

“I’m sure,” he agreed. “In the meantime, I ought to get you settled, if my silly beast is done gorging himself…”

His eyes unfocused, and Sif realized T’horr was talking to his dragon. “He’ll be done in a moment. There are quarters for ladies taken on Search close to the weyrfolk living areas,” he said as he helped her mount up again. “I’ll see you settled there. Normally I’d put you up in my own weyr, but…”

He trailed off. Sif got the picture and smiled, her hand squeezing his arm to show her appreciation. Most bronze riders would have struck up some kind of interest in the women they Searched; prudent, if they were hoping to find a woman who might be their weyrmate at some point. But the queen egg wasn’t Impressed yet.

The shaft rumbled as klah arrived for them. Sif gratefully sipped the hot beverage, letting it warm her to her core as thoughts chased themselves round and round in her head. “Was Loki always thus?” she asked at last. T’horr lowered his mug with a sigh, staring at the steam that curled up out of the opening. Out in the outer weyr, Mjolnith rumbled in what Sif thought was a reassuring sort of way.

“We grew up quite close, Loki and I. He Impressed his Rayuth at the next Hatching after mine, so we were nearly in the same weyrling group. In many ways he was a better dragonrider than I will ever be, and a good leader when he put his mind to something other than playing tricks on his wingmates. If he had stayed at the Weyr he likely would have been out on Search too right now, with as much of a chance at Weyrleader as I have, but…”

“What happened?”

“It was storming that Fall.” His voice had become strangely hollow and dead, as though he had recited the words enough in his mind to have them memorized but the hurt had not gone away. “A nasty one had blown in off Tillek, and visibility was poor enough without the rain and the wind whipping Thread into clumps and tangles. Many dragons and their riders were hurt in that Fall – more scores and lacerations than I care to think about. We were flying understrength for a few Falls after, but…”

Sif was silent – a feat for her – letting T’horr process. At last he continued.

“Rayuth had been wingtipped and had gone _between_ to freeze it off, just as we were all trained to do. In the three breaths it took for him and L’kei… Loki… to reemerge, Thread had clumped right where he was about to come out. I sent Mjolnith after it. Dragons are usually exceptionally good at knowing where they are in relation to each other so they don’t collide, but that Fall was so unpredictable… if Rayuth had survived it Loki probably would have been commended for his flying, he always was better at those Falls. But just as he and Rayuth came out of _between_ Mjolnith started to flame, and it caught Rayuth from head to shoulders, just as the ends of the Thread clump hit them. Scored and scorched, he was mad with pain and Loki was just as terrified. Suyeth… Weyrwoman Frigga’s queen… she tried to hold him when they were in the bowl. Rayuth was one of her sons…

“They dosed Loki unconscious with fellis,” T’horr whispered. “But when he went to sleep, there was nothing to hold Rayuth. He had broken bones and was grievously injured but he still managed to go _between._ When Loki awoke…”

“I’ve been told that losing your dragon is like losing a limb,” Sif began, but T’horr shook his head.

“It’s far more profound than that,” he insisted. “It is as though part of your heart is missing. That is why I was so glad to know he had found you, and so hesitant to bring you here. My brother’s heart was broken that day, and I have always hoped he will heal, but… some hurts take longer. Some do not heal at all. Most dragonless riders never fully recover, but I hoped that if he had you he would remember that he is not alone. We do not talk – you can see why – but I still wish for my brother to be successful in this.”

Sif closed her eyes, controlling her breathing. No wonder Loki had been filled with anger when they’d met, no wonder he didn’t speak about his past. Just hearing about it made her heart ache, but to go through it… “Can a rider not Impress again?” she asked curiously. “If they were found worthy of a dragon once, then surely…”

“It isn’t done,” T’horr said, and Sif could hear that he felt insulted. “It would dishonor the bond that a rider and their dragon had, and… it just isn’t done. Believe me, if it was, we would have tried to convince Loki to re-Impress. He is - _was_ \- one of the best.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know more than the Teaching Ballads about what weyr life is like.”

“But those you have note-perfect, yes?”

Sif laughed a bit hysterically. “I got so sick of them as an apprentice I wished someone would take the lot and leave them _between._ ”

“It’ll be good to have a trained Harper in the Weyr again,” T’horr said. “We have F’dral, but his repertoire is not appropriate for younger ears.”

“Then it looks like I’ve found my posting whether or not I Impress,” Sif replied, feeling a stab of guilt a moment later. Loki had wanted a cold place to be posted, but she doubted that he would have accepted a position in any Weyr after what had happened to him, and there was no way she saw that he could be convinced to come join her. Guilt was followed by annoyance – he knew that she had been at the mercy of her father’s whims and desires for power, that she hated the idea that anyone controlled her destiny besides herself, and yet he’d tried to tell her she wasn’t _allowed…_

“The good thing about Weyr life,” T’horr began, cutting through her ruminating, “Is that you can leave behind things that trouble you. Whether or not you Impress the queen, you will be welcome here as long as you like.”

“That’s a relief. It’s a long way back to Fort.”

When she was settled into her temporary quarters later, Sif sat on the rush-filled mattress and watched the other women brought to the Weyr from Search flutter around nervously. They were the daughters of Lord Holders, craftswomen, all nearly her age or a little older or younger. To Sif it all seemed too much drama for the situation, but then again, this morning she had been abed with her beloved and hours later was sitting in a chilly room carved out of an extinct volcano awaiting a potential future as a dragonrider, so perhaps the unreality of the day limited her patience. She went to bed alone for the first time in Turns.

The next morning after they had awoken and broken their fast, they were met in the dining hall by Frigga, the Weyrwoman. The clutch of eggs hardening on the Sands, just days away from Hatching, was of her queen Suyeth, and she said that her dragon was always more comfortable when she was around.

Sif was glad for her sturdy shoes when they actually walked onto the Hatching Sands. They were hot underfoot to help harden the eggs, she knew, but surely these women had brought something other than thin sandals to wear? Would they greet the young queen dancing as though it was a Gather, then? Her eyes tracked over to where Suyeth hovered close by. The queen was nearly bronze with age, her muzzle beginning to go gray, but her eyes were bright and muscles rippled under her hide as she shifted around, rustling her wings and making enough racket to intimidate some of the ladies who could be flying her daughter.

“Oh, stop fluttering you silly thing,” Frigga said gently. Suyeth folded her wings and hunkered down. She left the queen egg uncovered but, perhaps to make a point, began giving the rest of the mottled eggs extra attention. Frigga smiled fondly at her dragon.

“A weyrwoman, a queenrider, must have a firm hand with her dragon betimes,” she said. “Queens are the largest and smartest of our dragons, and sometimes this manifests as stubbornness. Weyrwomen are also expected to be an example for the rest of the Weyr; a slovenly weyrwoman can be disastrous for morale and for the future of those she leads. Laziness in dragon care will not be tolerated, and more often than not your dragon will rebel against your instructions if you do not care for her. When she hatches, she will want to gorge – in this as later on in her life, you must not let her. Keep a hold of her, and certainly do not starve her, but overfeeding can result in… discomfort.”

By the time they filed out of the Hatching Grounds, Sif’s head felt full to bursting with information, so she did not notice Frigga coming up beside her and touching her on the arm.

“My son tells me that you are the one he brought on Search. Sif, yes? From the Harper Hall?”

“Yes, Weyrwoman.”

“Frigga, please, when we are together like this. T’horr has told me much about you.”

Thinking she knew where this was going, Sif bit her lip. “Loki is well, Weyrw—Frigga.”

“He didn’t say you were so perceptive.” Frigga sighed, and her face and shoulders seemed to sag a bit. “I have had more luck than my weyrmate or T’horr at keeping in contact with my wayward son, but I can hardly blame him. He harbors so much anger and loneliness in his heart, and hides it with things that push anyone who would help him away. Except for you, and I think that fact alone makes you more deserving of being a weyrwoman than anyone else.”

“That I tolerate his moods?”

“Well, yes, but that you have the compassion to see past them. Compassion is, of course, an excellent trait in any dragonrider… not that you could tell any of these—“ she made an expansive gesture taking in the entire Weyr bowl “—as much. But it gives me hope to know that he loves you.”

“Loved,” Sif corrected, bitterness in her mouth. “As soon as T’horr asked me here, Loki turned his back on me.”

“Give him time. Loki has always been more inward-focused than T’horr, and when they were younger I worried that his brother’s gregariousness would overshadow Loki, but he found his place as a bronze rider and it seems he has done the same as a Harper. In his adaptability I have complete faith. And I think, if I know my son, that he does still love you. He does not give that easily at all.”

“What if I Impress the queen, and Mjolnith flies her…”

“There are ways around these things. Adaptability, remember; rigid thinking is how dragonkind fails.”

They spent the rest of the day learning how to prepare for Fall. The Weyr would be fighting Thread the next day, and by the time she fell onto her mattress Sif was certain that numbweed was leaking out her pores despite the intense scrubbing she’d given herself in the bathing pool.

“I could have stayed an apprentice in the Harper Hall,” she mumbled into her pillow.

The woman beside her, a tiny lady with a head of brown hair, rolled over. “You’re from the Harper Hall?”

“Originally from Ruatha,” Sif replied, cracking her eyes open again. “But I ran away to become a Harper, thus realizing my Lord Holder father’s worst fears.”

The other woman – Jane, she remembered – laughed tiredly. “I’m from Benden,” she said. “Not so glamorous as a Lord Holder’s daughter. My parents died in a mill accident when I was a babe. My father’s friend raised me.”

“I had just been raised to the rank of Master when I was Searched.”

“I think if studying the stars around Pern was a craft, I’d have been a Master too.” Jane sighed, rolling onto her back. “Now I suppose we only have to worry about one. But I still wonder what it would be like… there are old stories that our ancestors came from the stars, you know.”

“Old, _old_ stories. I remember seeing Records like that in the Harper Hall and at Ruatha.”

“Maybe one day we’ll return to them.”

Sif stared at the ceiling, following a vein of lighter-colored rock until she would have had to move her head. “Maybe,” she murmured.

Her state of exhaustion did not improve the next day, for she was expected to be out with the rest of the weyrfolk tending injured dragons and riders. She and Jane had formed a team in the morning, and they worked side by side for the length of the Fall. Dragons, they agreed later on, were far easier to treat than their riders, who were often half-mad with their dragon’s echoed pain. Jane was far too small to wrestle an injured rider into compliance, but Sif had grown up tussling with her brothers, so she held down scored riders (or even unhurt ones only responding to shared hurt) while Jane tended them with a look of determination on her face.

She only saw T’horr from a distance that day. He’d been up on the Rim with the other wingleaders, Mjolnith a huge bulk against the dawn sky; then when the wings had returned, Sif had looked up as they flew overhead. Mjolnith had landed neatly on his weyr ledge, but T’horr had only given her a distracted wave before going inside. Miffed, she had thrown herself into post-Fall activity, slathering Threadscore, helping repair damaged wings – she found her nimble fingers a great help here – feeding riders fellis juice to calm them. 

She was finishing up a bandage on a blue rider’s Threadscored shoulder when she looked up and realized that the Bowl was largely empty, that wounded dragons were being lifted up to their weyrs or making a slow way up themselves, that riders were filtering into the Lower Caverns for food and discussion, and that O’dinn and Frigga were standing by the stairs down, watching the weyrlings and the weyrfolk work. Frigga caught her eye and smiled, and then Jane was calling for her help with a brown rider, and Sif tucked in the end of the bandage and sent off the blue rider with instructions not to dislodge her good work. Both she and Jane only had the energy for sleepy goodnights before they crawled under their furs and went to sleep that night.

The days turned into a sevenday, and the eggs hardened on the Sands. The candidates were now allowed to walk among the eggs, encouraged to touch them. Sif sometimes would step away from the group of women clustered around the queen egg and look at the other eggs, wondering what each one held. Were the larger ones bronzes, perhaps? Or were they dragonets just naturally closer to their adult size from the start? She reached out and stroked the hard surface of one, admiring the green and bronze mottling on it, until Suyeth rumbled at her and she quickly rejoined the group. But she did not abandon her fascination with the whole clutch; it did take more than a queen to make a Weyr, after all, and if she was meant to lead she ought to be familiar with all the dragons.

It happened suddenly one day. They were in the Lower Caverns helping to clean up after breakfast when a humming vibration started up through her feet, shaking the dishes on the countertops. Then suddenly the Headwoman was yelling at them to get to the Hatching Grounds; they were met at their quarters by a slightly panicked weyrling who pushed simple white robes into their hands. Sif undressed by her bed without thought for modesty, pulling the robe over her head and stamping her feet into her boots. Other women were already weeping with nervousness, some seemed quietly brave, others stunned into silence, but each one of them surely felt the same knot of anticipation Sif did in that moment.

The other candidates were already on the Hatching Sands when the women filed in, forming a loose semicircle around the golden egg. Suyeth was rustling again, weaving her head back and forth over the eggs and flicking her tongue out, her eyes whirling red-orange in agitation. All the dragons’ eyes were like that, Sif noticed, looking up at the ledges around the Hatching Ground that now held weyrfolk and the dragons of the Weyr. The hum was coming from the dragons as they awaited the arrival of the new dragons, and as the eggs began to rock back and forth more violently, the dragons quieted slowly. Suyeth whined as she stretched her head up to where Frigga sat on the ledges, and Sif watched the Weyrwoman reach down to scratch one of the eye ridges, speaking low and soothingly to her weyrmate.

In the silence, the crack and split of the eggs could be heard, and faint tapping noises and shrill cries were coming from inside the ones that hadn’t cracked yet. The dragons wanted to hatch, and all the candidates pressed forward. Boldly, Sif took a step toward the queen egg, and as she did a few other women did too. Jane was at her side, pale but with her chin raised and her shoulders back, and Sif hoped they could remain friends after she Impressed. There was no doubt in her mind that she would.

_Ruatha has produced some of the greatest dragonriders Pern has known,_ she thought to herself. _I would be continuing that proud tradition._

One of the other eggs cracked and split, spilling out a bronze dragonet. There was a murmur of approval from the audience, and the other bronzes trilled a welcome as the hatchling flopped onto the sands, wings and limbs and tail tangled up. One of the candidates stepped forward tentatively, then with growing confidence, righting the dragonet and straightening the wings. The dragonet crooned, stretching his neck up to the boy, eyes whirling happily. The boy’s face suffused with joy, he looked up and called out, “He says his name is Normath!”

Applause broke out as the new dragonrider and his dragon made their slow way out of the Hatching Ground, and Sif smiled. No wonder it was so hard for riders to lose their dragons; that look of adoration that dragon and rider had exchanged was comparable only to the love between partners.

The queen egg rocked back and forth and Sif turned her attention to it. Tapping was coming from inside now, slowly, but then more frantic as the little queen inside began to fight her way out. Other eggs were cracking, but the sounds only registered in the back of her mind as a golden, wedge-shaped head pushed its way past the shell. With a shrug of gleaming shoulders, the new gold hatchling cracked her shell and fell out onto the sands. Many of the women seemed torn between running forward and running away, but the queen made their decision for them as she surged forward, unsteady on new legs. She reached for one of the women and accidentally raked her from shoulder to hip with her claws. Red blossomed on white cloth as the woman fell back, and the other weyrwoman candidates cried out and moved back, moved away from the hatchling. Mewling piteously, the queen kept moving from one to the next, uncaring that her claws scratched those she walked over.

Something in her snapped and Sif went into action. “Jane,” she said over her shoulder, “Get the queen away before she hurts herself or someone else!” She went over to pull one of the women back out of the way as the queen changed direction, passing her and heading for the Hatching Ground entrance. Something was pulling at her robe, bumping against her back, but Sif made sure that the injured woman was safe and that the others were getting attention from weyrfolk before she turned around…

…and looked straight into the eyes of a newly hatched green dragonet, right as Jane cried out joyfully, “Her name is Darcith!”

That didn’t matter, though. The green’s eyes changed from red-orange to blue-green and she butted her head against Sif’s stomach again. Dazed, Sif rested her hands on warm, soft hide, stroking the eye ridges until both the dragonet’s eyes closed.

_I am Svalth,_ the dragonet said. _I love you._

“I love you too, Svalth,” Sif breathed.

*

O’dinn was already in the Weyrleader’s conference room when Frigga arrived with T’horr. H’gun, the Weyrlingmaster, was there too, and sat wordlessly across from T’horr.

“So,” O’dinn said, folding gnarled hands on the table. “We have a problem.”

“I don’t see why,” Frigga replied. Immediately after Sif had Impressed green Svalth, she had seen this conversation coming. Indeed they had a preview of it as they changed into the fancier clothes they would wear to the dinner that night celebrating the Hatching, and Frigga sincerely hoped that something she had said then had gotten through her wher-headed weyrmate’s skull. “Impression is not something we can change. Sif was meant to Impress Svalth, and so she did, and so it is done.”

“Women do not Impress greens,” O’dinn replied. “We have been over this, Weyrwoman.”

“Women Impress the dragons they are meant to Impress, Weyrleader. Just because it has not happened before – to our knowledge – does not mean it does not happen. Greens are still female dragons; it is natural that one might be more drawn to a fellow woman, since men do not always understand the needs of their mates.”

“Should we then allow women to Impress browns? Bronzes?”

“Perhaps we should at that!”

T’horr ducked his head, and Frigga was glad that her oldest son had the presence of mind not to laugh in front of his father. O’dinn pursed his lips, looking at H’gun.

“We will have to clear a wing of the weyrling quarters,” he began, and O’dinn made a noise.

“We are going to train her?”

“She is a dragonrider,” T’horr said at last. “And she has… she gave up a lot to be here.”

“You cannot be thinking about putting a newly Impressed, untrained dragon and rider pair out of the Weyr!” Frigga made a slashing motion with her hand. “ _That_ is not done, O’dinn. We do not turn out one of our own.”

_Svalth is my daughter,_ Suyeth said, and through the rock walls Frigga could hear her dragon warbling and other dragons responding in surprise to their queen.

“I think that is all the answer you need,” Frigga replied archly, though privately she knew her dragon was being rather dramatic; usually the only daughters queens acknowledged were their golden ones, since greens were sterile from firestone use. But O’dinn need not know that.

His brow drawn down, O’dinn sat back in his chair. “I will not have my senior queen upset,” he said. “And I certainly do not want my Weyrwoman upset. And you are right, of course – Sif is rider for Svalth now, and the Weyr does not turn out its own. See her settled in, H’gun.”

“Yes, Weyrleader.”

They all rose, and after T’horr and H’gun had left, Frigga went to put her hand on her weyrmate’s arm as they walked out of the council chamber. “It was bound to happen,” she murmured quietly as they made their way back up to the Bowl and started across to the glowing, golden mouth of the lower caverns. “And from what I know of Sif, she will be happier as a green’s rider rather than as a queen, bound by far more rules.”

“You say that because keeping her close may bring back Loki.”

Frigga would have bristled at his words if she did not know that his younger son’s departure had hurt O’dinn deeply. T’horr might be the one favored for Weyrleader when they finally stepped down, but to her – and, deep down, to O’dinn – they had both hoped Loki would be at his brother’s side. T’horr needed guidance, and Loki had been the canniest of their riders. “I want only happiness for both our sons, as I have said many times. That is all a mother can hope and ask for, yes?”

Somewhere, Suyeth sleepily rumbled a reply in her mind. _For both dragon and rider._

“It is all any parent should ask for.” They reached the entrance to the lower caverns and emerged into a whirl of sound and heat, and shouts of greeting (and raised glasses of wine) when they were recognized. Most of the riders were too young to partake, but she saw Sif and T’horr and the new queenrider – Jane, she remembered – seated at a table together. There was a smile on her son’s face, and Frigga felt one of her own blossom outward. T’horr had been far too melancholy too often for the last five Turns. It was about time that he started to feel like himself.

“Congratulations on your Impressions, both of you,” she said when she made her way over to the table. “Sif, for your green Svalth – I knew when I met you that you were destined for something great – and Jane, for Darcith. She has the makings of a fine young queen, and dragonkind always needs strong queens.”

“Thank you, Weyrwoman,” Jane said. She tried to keep from glancing at T’horr and kept failing, and Frigga held her expression still. They were still Turns away from Darcith’s first mating flight, but she would not object to that particular pairing. Jane was a lady with her wits about her. She could very well make a fine Weyrwoman herself, one day.

“How are they?” Frigga asked gently, sitting in an empty seat. Sif’s eyes unfocused, then she smiled.

“Svalth is sound asleep,” she replied. “After all the meat she ate I’m not surprised.”

“They are ravenous when they Hatch. And our little queen?”

“Darcith’s sound asleep on her couch.” Jane’s face became suffused with that joy and love that all newly Impressed riders had. “She’s so full she might as well be round.”

“Get used to feedings like that,” T’horr told them. “It doesn’t stop for Turns.”

“It’s a wonder there are herdbeasts at all, with the appetites of young dragons.” Something in Sif’s expression shifted, became brittle for an instant before she hid it in her wine glass.

_She thinks of Loki,_ Suyeth said. _She misses him._

_They are in love,_ Frigga replied. _It is like she is separated from her dragon._

_Then we should bring them together._

_If only it were that simple, my love._

T’horr was looking at her curiously when she came back to herself, but Frigga gave him a quelling gaze and he glanced away. “You’ll start training in the morning, both of you,” he said. “With the weyrlings.”

“And I will steal you away betimes to learn the craft of being a Weyrwoman,” Frigga told Jane. “You are smart enough to learn quickly, but you must learn well and now, when Darcith is young. She will be a dragon all the rest of the Weyr looks to.”

“Sounds like there are a few long Turns ahead of us.” Sif took another sip of wine, and this time Frigga knew T’horr caught the edge of her melancholy and set his own cup down carefully, the spark gone from his eyes for the moment.

“Long, but full,” she said, taking Sif and Jane’s hands. “And it will be so fulfilling. You will see – you will _both_ see.”

*

Loki sat his gitar carefully on his lap and stretched his fingers, glad for the break he got when Bitra’s Lord Holder stood up to talk. It was cold in the great hall; Lord Rackar was a stingy one, preferring to line his own pockets rather than spend marks on silly things like wood or coal or anything to provide heat, but Loki had never been bothered by the cold, so Bitra in winter was no great hardship for him.

_The blood of the High Reaches in me,_ he thought bitterly, and turned his mind to other things. But like a sore tooth he came back to that thought, worrying at it over and over. High Reaches meant the Weyr, which meant dragons, which meant Sif who was probably even now watching her queen grow. It had been two Turns since T’horr had taken her and left him alone again, and in that time neither the old wound from losing Rayuth or the new one from losing Sif had healed at all.

He caught the end of Lord Rackar’s almost-glare and picked up his instrument again. The songs he’d written didn’t sound as good without Sif’s clear alto to compliment him, but Rackar didn’t care. He had a Harper because it was expected of him to have a Harper; they didn’t get along, but Rackar paid him (partially to keep the Harper Hall from coming down on him) and Loki was far away from anything he knew, and the whole arrangement suited everyone just fine. It didn’t matter if he fell into bed half-asleep already from a dose of fellis, it didn’t matter that when he had dreams they were always vague, half-remembered nightmares. None of it mattered, so long as he stayed far, far away from the High Reaches.

When the feast ended, Loki made his way across the snowy courtyard to the hall reserved for those in the employ of the Lord Holder’s family. It had taken much cajoling and threatening, but Loki had gotten a room with windows that didn’t have drafts blowing snow in and a fireplace that had been cleaned sometime between the Hold’s founding and the present Pass. Rackar might not believe in heating his halls, but Loki built up a fire before shedding his clothing and crawling between the furs. Sleep without fellis might not be dreamless, but it came over him just the same.

In the morning he was getting ready to go over to the main hold and sing the Teaching Ballads to Rackar’s disorderly children when there was a great noise and the unmistakable whoosh of air over dragon wings. A shadow passed over his window; curious, as Bitra rarely was a place that dragonriders rarely visited, Loki leaned over just far enough to see a green dragon backwinging to land in the big courtyard long enough for her rider to dismount before he went back to preparing to face the day. If he didn’t need to make sure his instrument kept its tune he’d stuff cotton in his ears to keep out the wails of Rackar’s brats, but it would probably not help one bit.

He had tucked his gitar away in its lined case and was trudging across the courtyard when the last person he expected to see emerged from the main hold. Somehow, Loki managed to keep his grip on his gitar with fingers that had suddenly become very cold.

“Sif?” he breathed.

She was dressed in rust-colored riding leathers, her helmet tucked under an arm and her hair streaming down her back. In the years they’d been separated she had only grown lovelier, and there was a glow to her skin and a light in her eyes that could only be the result of flying a dragon. That light became a kind of close-guardedness as she approached him, her boots crunching in the snow.

“You’re a difficult man to find, Masterharper,” she replied.

“Perhaps because I’d rather not be found.”

“Don’t be dramatic.” Sif stopped, nearly took another step closer, but shuffled her feet instead and held her ground. “Why would you choose fardling _Bitra?_ ”

Loki glanced around at the high, unshuttered windows, the snow blanketing everything, the cold and unfriendly stares of some of the servants. “It’s cold here,” he said at last. “And I—“

“—always wanted a cold posting,” Sif murmured. “Well, it’s almost as cold as _between_ out here, so let’s go inside. We need to talk.”

“I don’t know what about.” Though it ripped at his heart-wounds to do so, Loki stepped around her and continued on his way. “I think we made our positions rather clear at the Harper Hall two Turns ago.”

Sif made an exasperated noise behind him and he heard her boots on the snow again as she caught up. “Shard it, Loki, that was _two Turns_ ago!”

“Yes, I know.”

“And you’re still bitter that I resented being _told_ what I could and could not do? _Knowing_ that I became a Harper to escape that?”

“And now you’re a dragonrider, and free of any bonds you may have had before.” Loki pushed the small Hold doors open with a palm, sending them banging back against the walls. “Weyrs don’t want their queenriders having… attachments…”

But it hadn’t been a queen in the courtyard, he thought. It had been a green.

“I’m not a queenrider, Loki.”

He slowed, and Sif grabbed his arm and spun him to face her, and the moment he looked into her eyes he was lost. They were narrow and angry (and justifiably so, part of his mind told him), but there was something in them that said she had been just as lonely as he had.

“You’re the green’s rider,” he said, tasting that thought.

“Svalth. Everyone thought I’d Impress the queen, but she passed right over me, Loki, because Svalth already found me.”

“Oh,” and even to Loki it sounded lame. “I see.”

“Glad you do,” Sif muttered, letting him go, and he wished she hadn’t because he felt the warmth from her hands leaving him quickly. He might have High Reaches in his veins but the pleasant things about being with Sif were all things warm and comfortable, things he had not allowed himself or, if he was honest, wanted for himself since Rayuth.

“Well,” he made his voice falsely cheery, “Nice to see you again, Sif. Congratulations on your Impression; I hope that works out for you.” And despite everything in him screaming for him to stay with her, Loki turned away and walked down the corridor, because if he stayed to face her she would see that his brokenness went far deeper than she had ever known and that half of it had been brought about by worrying his slights like a clam building a pearl.

“Loki!” she shouted after him. “I’m not going to keep chasing you, Loki! I came to get you because—because your father is dying, and T’horr cannot handle this alone, he is trying to lead the Weyr and be strong for his riders and your mother and he _needs you_.”

“He ought to have thought of that before he made his dragon flame mine.”

“It was an _accident!_ He told me about that day, even though it opened his own hurts to do it. He asked me to find you because he cannot lose his brother too!”

“Then why is he not here himself?”

“You know why, Loki.” True to her word, Sif planted her feet against any urge to come running after him as he walked away and glared at his back. “Just because we don’t run after you when you stomp off like a child doesn’t mean we don’t care about you.” And then, more quietly – and she probably thought he wouldn’t hear it – she continued, “It doesn’t mean we don’t love you.”

He did hear her boots then, but getting fainter as she left the Hold. The sound of the door shutting echoed down the stone corridor as he made his way to the Lord Holder’s chambers, his mind a-whirl the whole way. Sif’s words bounced back and forth in his mind until at last he pushed it all away, his decision made.

Rackar looked up when Loki entered, his brow knitting angrily. “You are supposed to be in the nursery with the women and the children,” he said. “I have no need of you here.”

“And I have no further need for you, Lord Rackar,” Loki said with a flourishing bow. “Send along the last of my pay to the Harper Hall. They’ll find me.”

He turned on his heel and went back the way he came, hoping that he was not too late, that he had not, once again, put himself in a mess of his own making. Behind him he heard Rackar running after him, shouting, but Loki broke into a run of his own and burst out into the snowy courtyard just as Sif’s dragon was landing to let her mount up. She hesitated when she saw him running out to her, her hands twisted in her dragon’s riding straps. “Yes?”

“Do you have room for a second rider on this tiny beast?” he asked. Svalth snorted indignantly, and Sif laughed.

“Svalth says that a man as small as yourself would be as much bother to her as a bird lighting on her tail,” she said. “Mount up behind me, Masterharper.”

Svalth didn’t offer a foreleg to help him up, but Loki was able to pull himself up and settle just behind Sif. The green was far smaller than Rayuth had been, and far nimbler – as she launched up into the sky Loki nearly lost his seat, and perhaps on purpose the green set a steep angle as she rose up off the ground enough to go _between._ He hesitated but put his arms around Sif’s stomach, and then they winked out of the air above Bitra and reappeared three breaths later above High Reaches Weyr.

He had not been here in seven Turns, but as with all Weyrs, things changed slowly. The heights were still manned by a brown dragon – though it didn’t look like V’tag and his dragon anymore – and the Bowl was still a hive of activity as Svalth spiraled tightly down to land.

The sight of the Weyr, the feeling of a warm dragon underneath him… it all started to bring back memories of Rayuth, memories of what he had lost that day. He must have had an expression on his face when he dismounted because Sif looked over as she took off Svalth’s harness so she could go dive into the lake.

“I didn’t know then,” she said quietly as they went to sit on a rock to watch the dragon play in the icy water. Loki kept a careful distance between them, not sure where they stood; her admission in the Hold could well have been part of a tactic to get him to return with her to the Weyr, and he didn’t trust it despite that it came from Sif. “I didn’t know what it was like to have a dragon. I can’t imagine losing Svalth now. No wonder you were so lost.”

“I was not _lost_ ,” he replied archly, but Sif gave him a look that he couldn’t meet. “It’s more complicated than that, but you know.”

“I do.” Sif watched Svalth splash about with unnecessary vigor, and though looking at her pained him, Loki could not help his eye for dragons.

“She’s very well-proportioned,” he said, letting the analysis level his voice out. This was far more comfortable to him than anything having to do with how he _felt_ right now. “Look how her wings are just long enough without being gangly. Is she finished growing? She must be.”

“You wouldn’t know it with the way she eats,” Sif muttered. “But she is a fine-looking green, isn’t she?”

“Her color’s good too,” Loki noted. “Her hide looks well-cared for.”

“A properly-oiled hide keeps a dragon safe. Hide that isn’t washed and oiled can stretch and crack _between_ and hurt a dragon.” Sif picked up a flake of rock, skipping it out across the water. It sank just in front of Svalth’s nose, and she blew bubbles up that roiled the water. “I had all that pounded into my head by the weyrlingmaster.”

“And now you can fly, and at last you are free of your father.” Loki glanced down, went for a stone himself just as Sif reached for the same one. Their fingers knocked. “Lady’s choice,” he said, and Sif closed her fingers around the flake of stone but didn’t throw it.

“You shouldn’t have told me not to go,” she said.

“I know.”

“You _ran away_ to Bitra.”

“I didn’t want to see you raising a gold queen, knowing that it could well be my _brother_ and his dragon as your weyrmate,” Loki replied bitterly. “He took so much from me already. It seemed he was intent on taking the rest.”

“You should have known better,” Sif admonished. “You should have known that I go where I feel is right, when I feel I must. Being a Harper would have been grand, but… now that I am here, I think I was always meant to be here. Not some lordling’s wife, doomed to be pregnant until I can no longer conceive, not even a Masterharper. I am a dragonrider. And your brother…” She looked at him and seemed about to say something, but thought better of it and slipped off the boulder, pressing the flake of rock into his hands. Again he felt warm all through, and nearly reached for her when she stepped away.

“You should come see him,” she said, and wordlessly, Loki put the rock into a pocket and followed her.

Here, in his father’s weyr, he could see the change. Mjolnith was out on the ledge, his eyes whirling the yellow-orange of worry. He watched Loki pass, but did not so much as rustle a wing. That didn’t bode well for T’horr; a dragon’s demeanor often mirrored their rider’s mood. Inside, Sleipnirth was curled up on his couch. The old bronze was dark with age, and so still that Loki had to pause, fingers twitching uneasily, to make sure that the dragon was actually breathing before he could continue.

O’dinn lay in his bed, swathed neck to wrist in bandages. Frigga sat beside him, their fingers laced and tears in her eyes, and at the foot of the bed was T’horr, resolute and as still as Sleipnirth was. Frigga and T’horr’s eyes went straight to him as soon as he entered, and though he was not one to feel shy, Loki certainly did not like all the attention leveled at him all at once.

“Hello, Father,” he said. O’dinn did not move, but Loki saw his eyelids flicker briefly.

“My dear son – oh, Sif, you brought him back for me,” Frigga breathed. She rose and wrapped her arms around Loki, and after a moment he returned the embrace. His mother felt frail under her riding leathers and the long overskirt, and though she had always seemed timeless to him, he saw her finally as being an older woman, worn down by years of stress and watching her friends and those who served under her die.

“You’re so thin,” she said, stepping back to take stock of him – still in his Harper blues and the fur coat from Bitra, still inexplicably holding his gitar case, his boots still caked with Bitra ice. Her fingertips pressed against his cheeks. “You’ve not been eating – I’ll send to the kitchens for food—“

“Don’t trouble yourself too much, Mother,” Loki told her awkwardly, taking her hands. “I’ll eat with the rest at dinner.”

“You’ll eat with your family, here,” Frigga told him, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Sif keeping a smile to herself at the Weyrwoman’s tone. “The only news I’ve had of you has been secondhand for seven Turns. I will see my two sons seated at a table together and we will take a meal together if it brings the Red Star itself down upon us to do it.”

“Thread falls in two days,” T’horr rumbled, speaking at last. He didn’t look at Loki anymore. “Don’t even jest, Mother.”

“At my age, I will do as I please, T’horr.” Frigga called down the shaft for klah and food. Loki hovered by the opening in the curtain separating inner and outer weyrs; Sif retreated to a stool near the table, and T’horr resolutely refused to look at him.

“Well,” Loki said brightly, “This is certainly a fine reunion.”

“You may do well to ask what ails your father so,” Sif muttered.

“As my lady has said…?”

T’horr spoke at last. “He still insists on leading the Weyr during fall. Two sevendays ago we had one – it was short, coming down out of the mountains, they’re freezing this close to Turnover—“

“I haven’t forgotten how cold it gets at Turnover in the High Reaches, T’horr.”

“…yes. Well, Mother told him not to do it, to let me lead the Weyr, but he said that as long as he and Sleipnirth were able to fly and flame they would do so, and… and he wasn’t out there half an hour before Sleipnirth came back to the Weyr, screaming and calling out for anyone to help. Father was only held on by his riding straps… he’s been Scored, badly, and when we dosed him with fellis… he hasn’t awoken. Sleipnirth fell into a deep sleep as well as soon as we moved Father in here. We fear they might not awaken.”

Sif’s eyes had flickered to him when T’horr spoke, and though he knew what kind of message she was trying to send, Loki couldn’t help but feel a little bit of glee in the fact that his sainted brother was suffering once more. He had read it plain enough in the letters he’d gotten (he had read some of them, curiosity being one of his many faults) and could see and hear it now. 

“You’re making this a habit, Brother,” Loki said. 

“That’s enough, Loki.” Frigga’s voice was mild, but it carried the weight of a Weyrwoman behind it. “The food is here. Come, sit. Tell me about Bitra – Svalth told Suyeth that is where they found you.”

“Bitra is cold.”

“Do you honestly think that I meant for Mjolnith to flame Rayuth that day?” T’horr asked, banging his mug of klah around rather more forcefully than was necessary.

“You have little enough competition now, don’t you?”

“Boys,” Frigga said, but they didn’t listen.

“Am I supposed to step aside for you every time you don’t want to fight for something? I asked for Sif to bring you back here because I _need your help_ running the Weyr while Father’s like this, but now I wonder why I thought it was ever a good idea.”

“I wonder that myself, T’horr. When have you ever been wrong?”

“I said _that is enough,_ ” Frigga told them, putting her mug of klah down on the table so that it sounded more like a gavel. “Whatever your antipathies toward each other, you will not discuss them here when your father lies injured and your friend sits beside you. Have it out elsewhere, but not here. Am I clear?” She watched for their nods, then sat back.

“Loki, we know you are not likely to want to spend much time around dragons,” she said, “So I have suggested other things you may do to help T’horr that he will discuss with you later on. But there will be no more Weyr business at this table; tell me of your Harper life. I was Searched from a Harper Hall, you know, long before either of you were born.”

Though he didn’t really want to talk – and T’horr, lost in his thoughts, seemed not to hear at all – Loki let his mother draw events of the last seven Turns out of him bit by bit. He never could deny her, and the way she laughed and smiled to hear of his adventures as a Harper made the words come a little easier, and slowly Sif started getting involved, correcting him when he embellished his role in things, adding more to the story, until he began to feel that even if there was now a rift between them formed of her status as a dragonrider, there need not be animosity because of it. That thought warmed him through more than the klah did, and though he tensed up as they passed Sleipnirth on their way back through the outer weyr after their meal and even more when he mounted Svalth to be conveyed to his quarters in the Weyr, he did not feel quite so hollow.

“We’ve prepared a place for you in the Lower Caverns,” Sif told him as they alighted in the Bowl. “It’s fit for a Lord Holder.” Some surprise must have come out in his expression because she crossed her arms. “Did you think you could just share my weyr?”

“The thought had occurred to me,” he muttered.

“You’ll have to sprout wings yourself before that happens.” And in a whirl of sand and cold air Svalth bore her aloft, and Loki watched them climb up the steep sides of the Weyr to a ledge far above. In each other’s life, perhaps, but at arm’s length.

*

Two days later Thread fell. Loki was nowhere to be seen that day, not that Sif was surprised. T’horr seemed to be in a deeper melancholy than usual, and as she landed and waited for Svalth and herself to be cleared, she saw that Mjolnirth was perched on the ledge of Jane and Darcith’s weyr. That made her smile; Darcith was sure to rise soon, and she sincerely hoped (for the sanity of the Weyr) that Mjolnith was the one to catch her. Jane made T’horr happy, and that was all Sif wanted for him.

“Svalth looks fine,” H’gun told her when he’d checked the green dragon from tip to tail. “You’ve taken good care of her. This was not your first Fall?”

“We’ve flown five so far.”

“So she is fully grown. She’s large for a green, but all in proportion to herself.” H’gun was silent a long time, examining Svalth with a keen eye. He rarely talked this much, but he’d taken her in as a weyrling, and now that she was a full rider Sif still valued his opinion greatly. He ran a hand over her shoulder, asked her to extend a wing again and eyed it, walked all around her again. Svalth watched him curiously, craning her neck to follow him.

_What is he doing, Sif?_

_I haven’t the slightest, love,_ she replied, putting her hand on Svalth’s foreleg. _But I’m sure that ‘admiring your fine form’ isn’t far off._

_Good. But I want to go swimming. I stink of firestone._

_Soon. Be patient._ Svalth snorted, but leaned her head into Sif when she reached up to scratch an eye-ridge. _Don’t lean so much! You’re a lot bigger than I am._

_Sorry!_

H’gun finished his thorough examination and came to stand be Sif. “She can go bathe in the lake,” he said, and smiled slightly when Sif started. “I am not Weyrlingmaster for nothing. I know what dragons want after a good Fall.”

Sif took off Svalth’s harness and told her she was free to go bathe with the other dragons now cavorting in the frigid waters. With a glad bugle, Svalth leaped up into the air in a high parabola and arrowed straight into the lake. Sif watched her fondly for a moment as she splashed about, then turned to H’gun. “Is something the matter?”

“Nothing at all. Svalth is fully grown, and she looks fine.”

“Then why the extra attention…?”

“She looks _very fine_ , Sif. Look at her.”

Brow furrowed, Sif turned to the lake again, where Svalth and a brown dragon were splashing each other now. She was looking very fine, the wintry sunlight glittering off the golden flecks in her hide. She was nearly shimmering, in fact, a bright emerald against the Turnover pale. And deep down in her gut, Sif had the answer; watching the brown dragon solicitously raise a wing so that Svalth had more space to swim about, seeing the coquettish way she crooned at him in thanks, Sif felt the first threads of hesitation filter in.

“She’s going to rise soon,” she whispered. “Oh… oh, shards…”

“At least you are not Jane,” H’gun said kindly. “With the Weyrleader how he is, Frigga will likely announce that they’re stepping down within a few days. Darcith is the closest to rising here, and that will be an event, but with greens, there’s less pressure. But usually, with the men, it’s not hard. But brown Kelpeth’s rider, there… he’s already shown interest in another blue rider, so I must ask… is there anyone you will want in your weyr when she rises?”

That question bounced around in Sif’s mind when she finally called Svalth from the water and made the short ride back up to their weyr. When she dismounted, Svalth nudged her with her muzzle.

_Something worries you,_ her dragon said. _What is the matter?_

_I’m just worried, dear heart,_ Sif replied, leaning against the great wedge-shaped head. _About the future._

_The future hasn’t happened yet, so there is nothing to worry about._ Svalth hummed in pleasure as Sif scratched her eye ridge again. _I love you, Sif. You are smart and kind. You will know what to do._

_Thank you._

She did worry, though; dragons might be more creatures of the moment, but their riders could not help but think ahead, and when she went down to the Lower Caverns to get some food she unfortunately ran into Loki, who was curled around a mug of klah and looked haggard. She looked at the door, wondering if she ought to take her meal back to her weyr, but when she reached out to Svalth she found the dragon’s thoughts occupied with brown Kelpeth, and sighed, weaving through the long tables and sitting across from Loki.

“You look as though you’ve ridden Fall right along with us,” she said. Loki shrugged.

“Can you blame me?”

“Not really.”

Loki glanced around them, then sighed, running a hand through his dark hair. It was unruly and long, curling around his shoulders, and Sif remembered how soft it was when she would bury her fingers in it, how much he seemed to love it, how he became like a cat being stroked…

“I was waiting to hear if you were all right,” he said quietly. “If you… if you survived.”

“I didn’t know you cared,” Sif replied a bit tartly, but knew that for a lie as soon as she tasted it. She had never stopped caring, and knew Loki’s outbursts would often hide the fact that he cared more than he wanted to admit. “You’ll have to trust that I was trained well enough. You grew up in the Weyr, you know what risks there are with being a dragonrider.”

“I know. But—“

“But nothing. Either you trust me enough to keep myself and my dragon alive through Fall, or you don’t.”

“I do trust you, but—Sif, I lost my dragon in the kind of Threadfall we’d survived dozens of times before. Being here during a Fall, it… brings things back.”

He took a long draught of his klah, and though Sif wanted to talk to him about what she had learned today, she thought it unwise to remind him of another aspect of being a dragonrider that he’d never experience again, and instead turned the conversation elsewhere. “Have you spoken to T’horr?”

Loki pursed his lips. “That is another thing that brings back memories.”

“He does need you, Loki. Sometimes I will catch him looking beside him as though there ought to be someone there, or waiting to say something in a conversation because some part of him still expects you to chime in. Seven Turns on, and he cannot let you go, and I don’t think he ever will.”

“He should,” Loki muttered. “What was I to him?”

“What you _are_ to him is his brother. Jane has no trouble telling him what she thinks as well as you would, but she did not grow up with him, here, she does not have that to draw on.”

“So it’s Jane.”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know that the moment you set foot in the Weyr again.”

“It’s nice to have suspicions confirmed.” Loki thought for a moment, his long fingers wrapped around his mug. “Her queen will rise soon. They’ll be Weyrleaders. How _tidy_.”

“T’horr will need you more than ever. But unlike you, I know better than to try and tell someone to do something.” Sif pushed what was left of her meal around the bowl.

“You do something more subtle,” Loki said after a long silence. “You plant the seed and let the other person work out what to do.”

“There’s nothing subtle about it. That’s what _sensible_ people do.”

“Nobody ever said I had any sense.” But she could tell from the set of his shoulders that he seemed more relaxed, and did hope that something she said had taken root.

*

Sif’s words echoed around his mind for the rest of the day. Loki stayed in the Lower Caverns, plucking strings aimlessly on his gitar, playing snatches of songs he and Sif had composed together, melodies of his own making. Those were always more dark and melancholy, inappropriate for a day where no dragon or rider had been badly hurt in Threadfall, and so when people began to ask him for other songs, he played them with a gladder heart than he might have normally.

When he went outside for some air – the Caverns were full of jubilant dragonriders, and he couldn’t sit on his stool and listen to dragonrider talk anymore – he found T’horr sitting on a rock by the lake, looking at the reflections of the stars. Though much of him rebelled, wanting to run away, another smaller voice, gathering in strength, cut through the pain and whispered that he had done enough of that already, and it was time to start facing things.

“The stars are much brighter here than they are in Fort,” he said. The silence of the Bowl seemed to absorb the sound of his words, until he wondered if T’horr had even heard him speak.

“It makes the cold worth it,” his brother said at last, shifting over on the rock so that Loki could sling his gitar over his back and climb up beside him. They sat in silence for a long time, watching the stars in the nearly-still lake.

“We used to sit up here together as children, do you remember?” T’horr asked at last. Loki grunted.

“We would bet each other on what dragons we’d get and when we’d Impress,” he said. “It was always a given for us.”

“We’re the sons of two of the most powerful people on Pern,” T’horr replied. “It was inevitable.”

“So was it inevitable that you wanted me out of the competition—“

“It was never a competition to me,” T’horr interrupted bitterly. “I… Father always seemed to expect me to follow him, but he never listened when I said that perhaps you would be better at it than I would.”

“What are you talking about?” Loki asked, surprised and working to keep it out of his voice. “You always seemed to revel in the attention given to the future Weyrleader of High Reaches, as though it was some dynasty and the dragons had nothing to do with it.”

“People – the riders, the weyrfolk, they depend on us, they look to us for morale and leadership. I couldn’t let them see how terrified I was of the idea of leading an entire Weyr.”

“And now that you’re on the cusp of it? Oh, don’t look at me like that, T’horr, I know that Darcith is near to rising, and I know the two of you are all but a pair. Mjolnith is the best bronze dragon here, besides, even if the two of you weren’t bonded…”

“He is, isn’t he,” T’horr murmured without a hint of modesty. “I am not the man I was seven Turns ago. I don’t think you are, either, and…” here he looked over his shoulder at Loki, a shrewd look in his eye. “Sif is not the woman she was two Turns ago. She is, if anything, more fantastically stubborn in her will to succeed.”

“She would have made you a fine Weyrwoman.”

“She would have, but… I think she is right where she needs to be. Talk to Mother or to Jane sometime, Loki. As I have had to be told many times as of late,” and T’horr’s voice became amused, “Being a queenrider is not nearly as glamorous as it seems to those on the outside of it.”

"And here I was disappointed that I’d never Impressed one of those golden beauties,” Loki replied drolly. “Father…”

“He woke up this morning, before Fall. He wanted to ride with us, but he’s dosed so strongly with fellis that he can barely move, and Sleipnirth is in no shape to fly Thread anymore. Mother is going to make the announcement that they are stepping down tomorrow. The next mating flight is going to be thrown open to all bronze riders who want to participate.”

“But we all know who the Weyr wants.”

As they spoke, something in Loki eased. T’horr was being careful, certainly, avoiding pushing subjects if he thought Loki uncomfortable with it, but more and more Loki realized that Sif and his mother had been right, that T’horr was talking to him about these things because he wanted to, not because he was humoring him. T’horr had never had the same capacity for pushing people to do and say what he wanted them to as Loki had, and it was that which he needed Loki for.

“I don’t really blame you for Rayuth,” he blurted out at last, shifting his feet against the rock. It felt uncomfortable to be so honest, but the words tumbled out and he could not stop them. “I am… I _was_ \--“

“I can’t ever imagine what it’s like to lose a dragon but that it’s like losing your very soul,” T’horr said at last. “I shouldn’t have been so angry with you.”

“No, I… it would have been easier if I hadn’t… you know.” Loki made a helpless gesture, and T’horr snorted.

“Here I thought you became a Harper because of your way with words, Brother,” he teased.

“Perhaps it only lasted long enough to talk myself into a Mastery. Which I don’t know the state of, now that I’ve abandoned a posting.”

“It’s Bitra,” T’horr waved a hand. “They’re cheats and lousy thieves anyway.”

“It’s far more pleasant here, if you can believe it.”

“Without much trouble at all.” T’horr looked at him now. “We’ve more of interest here to you too, Brother.”

“You mean Sif.”

“I do. She hurts too, Loki, and not even her dragon can fill the place she’s made for you in her heart.”

Loki didn’t know what to say to that, and thankfully T’horr took his silence as a hint and turned their conversation to matters of the Weyr, talking about his problems with the Holds High Reaches was responsible for, how to convince them to tithe a bit more so the Weyr wasn’t going hungry in the winters, how to convince dragonriders that it was not in fact the job of the weyrfolk to carve out their weyrs for them, a thousand other things that were needed to make a Weyr run but that he had no idea how to deal with. The night had passed far on by the time that they slid down from the rock and made for their respective beds, and it was with a considerably lighter heart that Loki pulled the furs over him that night.

The next day was spent with his mother in the storerooms, taking stock of their supplies, reporting back to T’horr, helping his mother again with the wording for her announcement. He suspected that she only wanted the time with him alone, and indeed their conversation became less about the shift in leadership and more about his abrupt manner of leaving the Weyr, but though she asked for contrition, it seemed to sting less, and they had righted themselves by the time that O’dinn woke up enough to reach for Loki and take his hand when he sat beside the bed.

“I know you will not believe me,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper such that Loki had to lean forward to hear, “But I wanted what was best for you too, Loki. You seemed to become annoyed the closer I got so I drew back. I see now that I should have treated you the same as T’horr.”

“You should have,” Loki agreed, but there was little bite in it. O’dinn was old too, he saw, and had counted his mistakes many times. It was a habit that he felt sure was passed down through families.

“I am glad to see you here again. It pains you to look on dragons, I know, but we all needed you here.”

“I think,” Loki said, “I needed to be here, Father.” That made O’dinn smile a little, and then he fell asleep again, and Loki sat beside his bed for the rest of the afternoon playing a quiet ballad, lost in thought.

Four days after Fall found him asking one of the crop of weyrlings for a ride up to Sif’s weyr. He seemed to be making the penitence rounds, he’d reasoned to himself, though it had done nothing to ease the knot of tension that had formed in his stomach at the thought of talking to her. She had always had a way of disarming him, and he suspected she knew exactly how to use it to her advantage in a situation like this.

Svalth was sleeping on the ledge when the weyrling hovered to let him slip off his blue’s shoulders. Loki studied her while he waited for Sif to come out and greet him. Her hide had been freshly oiled and gleamed in the light, highlighting the golden undertones to her green color. She was almost glowing, but before Loki had time to finish that thought, Sif pushed through the curtain and came out to greet him.

“She does love the sun,” he said. Sif scowled at her dragon.

“I’m glad she’s asleep. She’s been testy lately.”

“Perhaps because her rider can be so prickly.”

“Go tail fork first _between_ , Loki.”

“And I was the one coming here to apologize.”

Sif hesitated, then twitched her head and pulled the curtain aside, inviting him in. Her weyr was one of the newer ones; the walls were still rough, showing marks of pick and dragon claw, but Sif had clearly done some work herself to smooth things out, and the furnishings were fine even compared to the prosperous Harper Hall. Her own gitar hung on a peg carved out of a stone jog in the wall, and he gestured to it.

“Do you still play?”

“Sometimes. The weyr’s children need to know the ballads as much as a Holder’s child. If you stay long enough you’ll probably be asked to help out yourself.”

“At least they’re smarter than Rackar’s get.”

“A runnerbeast is smarter than Rackar himself.”

“True enough.” Loki watched her move restlessly about her weyr, needlessly straightening things. “I did come here to apologize to you, Sif. I never should have told you not to come here.”

“At least you see it now.”

“My stay here has been… well, enlightening, I suppose.”

Sif eyed him from her bed, her lips twitching. “In that you’ve found some sense, or that you’ve lightened your load?”

“Both, I think.”

“Good.” Sif sighed, scuffing her boots along the stone floor. “I wrote a dozen letters to you that I never sent along.”

“Whyever not?” Loki asked curiously. “I’ve never known you to hold back.”

“Because it hurt too much to think of you discarding them like you did to the ones T’horr sent along. More than being free to choose my own path, I want to know that I am not being silenced. I will not _be_ silent, and to think that you would not give my words the chance to speak to you was not one I could bear.”

“I would have read them, Sif.”

She rose, and when she kissed him at last it was the last thing he needed to loosen the grip the cold had on his heart, and the little sigh of pleasure when he pulled her tight against him was like the rush of water in the spring. She was the warmth and life he had been waiting for in this long winter.

They were interrupted by the bugling of dragons outside, and Sif’s eyes were wide when she pulled away, running through the curtain to the now-empty outer weyr. Far below, Svalth was down among the herdbeasts, scattering them with her wild cries, and all around and above her were the male dragons, brown and blue and a few bronzes too, watching her with red-whorled eyes as she lashed out at a herdbeast and dragged it toward her with a claw.

“She’s rising,” Sif whispered, and her face was pale when Loki turned to watch her. “She’s rising to mate and, and I don’t know what I’m going to do—“

“Did no one tell you—“

Sif waved a hand at him, her gaze already becoming faraway. “I was told, I know, but… but the other rider—“

“Sif, you have a choice,” Loki told her, grabbing her by the shoulders. She was only half with him, the rest of her with her dragon, now greedily blooding her kill down in the Bowl. He made her look at him. “The other rider can be with the one he loves. You can choose that too!”

Sif’s fingers tightened on his leather jacket until it creaked in her strong grip, as though she needed an anchor. “I do choose,” she whispered, leaning into him. “I choose you, Loki!”

He kissed her again, and pulled her along into the inner weyr. She wasn’t with him anymore; she was down in the Bowl with Svalth, blood a wherry in a flurry of feathers, trumpeting a challenge to her dragon suitors. Her lips were parted, a flush starting on her face as her eyes turned to him and she bared her teeth, turning and pushing him onto the bed. Dimly he heard Svalth bugle again and the whistling of air as she launched herself skyward. Shadows passed by the weyr, the green rising and her males giving chase. Even without a dragon, he could still feel the intensity of it; a mating female cast her emotions on a far wider band than just the one shared with her rider. It wasn’t the same as having a dragon himself, but it was good enough. With Sif above him, tearing at his trousers, it was more than enough.

“Stay with her, he whispered, sitting up to help Sif with her tunic, sliding his hands up her torso. The air was cold and he should have been cold but he touched her and burned, and reveled in it. His hands remembered her shape, his tongue her particular taste, the saltiness of her skin. He was with Sif as Sif was with Svalth, and when the green was caught at last, Sif arched above him, crying out to match the noise the dragons made, and he was crying out too, at the pleasure as much as the sweet pain of his pieces being stitched back together.

*

The next morning was cold and misty, and Loki’s boots slipped a little as he stood out on the ledge. The mist condensed and froze when it reached stone, and even through his clothes and the fur he’d wrapped around himself, Loki felt cold.

_Go back to bed,_ someone said. It had the sleepy resonance of a dragon, and Loki turned in surprise to see Svalth had cracked an eye at him. It whirled blue-green and content, her muzzle resting upon her folded forearms. On his ledge just below, Kelpeth crooned softly, and Svalth hummed in reply, as much at her mate as at the pleasure when Loki reached out to scratch her eye ridge.

“Did you speak to me?” he asked.

_You make Sif happy. That makes me happy. I like you, Loki._

He splayed his fingers out over the green’s hide, glad that he could be around at least one dragon without the pain being too much.

_It is shared now with your weyrmate._

“Weyrmate,” Loki said. “I like the sound of that.”

“I would like it more,” a groggy voice called from beyond the curtains, “If mine would come back to bed. I’m getting cold, Loki.”

A smile touched his lips, one that wasn’t weighed down for once by the weight of Turns. His brother might be Weyrleader soon, but that didn’t matter as much anymore. He had what he wanted.

“We can’t have that,” he replied, and let the curtain drop behind him.


End file.
